Marcus West > Quotes

“I would like to say at the outset that I have little or no interest in mindlessly categorising individuals, and certainly not of “reducing” them to mere labels. If I attempt to group together certain individuals’ experiences, it is to better understand them, their distress and motiva- tions, and what underlies their difficulties. As will become clear, in one sense the term borderline becomes redundant, as the individual’s par- ticular early relational experiences are understood to play the central role in their development and life experience. Yet even these do not ultimately “define” the individual, but rather, through understanding and working through their traumatic experience, the individual can be freed to fully develop, use, and manifest themselves in satisfying and fulfilling ways. The term borderline is, for me, left as a signifier of the particular kinds of reasons that the individual’s struggle to reach this position may have been so difficult.”
― Marcus West, Into the Darkest Places: Early Relational Trauma and Borderline States of Mind