Saying that somebody has borderline persondality disorder describes a DSM diagnosis but really tells you nothing about the patient's individual personality structure--it is just a collection of symptoms. As you may know, the term borderline originally referred to a level of functioning and NOT typology of personality--borderline is borderland between psychotic functioning and high neurotic functinoing. The group of people Gunderson studied when coming up with DSM criteria were primarily hystrionic, hence the hystrionic nature of people who tend to be labeled with BPD.
Remember that it is NOT the presence of immature defense mechanisms that defines a personality disorder (we all have these under stress, etc.) it is the LACK of mature ones.
Somebody above recommended Nancy McWilliams book "Psychoanalytic Diagnosis"--if you want to get an overview of personality structure and how to think about it in a more sophisticated way, I'd start there.
Psychotic--borderline--neurotic--mature refers to level of functioning. Various typological categories of personality ARE associated with certani defenses, what comes to mind are:
Paranoid--projection
Schizoid--withdrawal
Obscessive/Compulsive--doing stuff
Hypomanic--denial
Narcissistic--devaluing
Dissociative personality--disssociating
Hope this is helpful??
