Abstract
Clients who have made Borderline Personality Adaptations often find it difficult to identify and reach personally meaningful goals. In this paper, Greenberg describes a simple method that these clients can utilize as a general template to identify realistic steps toward their goals and anticipate and overcome obstacles. A major problem these clients encounter is that their goals may quickly become part of the unseen ground of their experience as other compelling feelings, desires, and needs become foregrounded. Greenberg describes and demonstrates how to use the Gestalt principle of figure/ground formation to help these clients. Detailed clinical examples that demonstrate how to use this method are given, commonly encountered problems are discussed, and possible solutions are suggested.
