Determining the amenability of personality disorders to psychotherapy -- a patient's capacity to benefit from verbal approaches to treatment -- is important in helping clinicians determine the treatability of cases. Michael Stone here shares the factors he has observed over long years of practice that can help practitioners evaluate patients, stressing the amenability of the various disorders to amelioration. By focusing on which patients are likely to respond well to therapeutic intervention and which will prove most resistive, his book will help therapists determine with what kinds of patients they will most likely succeed and with which ones failure is almost a certainty. Stone establishes the attributes that affect this amenability -- such as the capacity for self-reflection, motivation, and life circumstances -- as guidelines for evaluating patients, then describes borderline and other personality-disordered patients with varying levels of amenability, from high to low. This coverage progresses from patients belonging to the DSM "anxious cluster," along with the depressive-masochistic character and the hysteric character, to patients who demonstrate an intermediate level of amenability to psychotherapy. He introduces the interrelationship between borderline personality disorder and dissociative disorders and discusses treatability among certain patients in Clusters "A" and "C," as well as others with narcissistic, histrionic, depressive disorders. Final chapters address the most severe aberrations of personality and the limitations they impose on the efficacy of therapy. Personality-Disordered Patients is filled with practical, clinically focused information. This guideline structured book: Covers all personality disorders-including ones not addressed in the latest DSM such as sadistic, depressive, hypomanic, and irritable-explosive Identifies both attributes necessary for treatability and factors associated with low treatability Pays particular attention to borderline disorders, which represent the most discussed conditions and are among the most challenging to psychotherapists Reviews personality traits whose presence, if intense-even if unaccompanied by a definable personality disorder-creates severe problems for psychotherapy Numerous case studies throughout the book provide examples that will help therapists determine which of their own patients are most likely to benefit from their efforts and thereby establish their own limits of effectiveness. By alerting practitioners to when therapy is likely to fail, these guidelines can help them avoid the professional disappointment of being unable to reach the most intractable patients.

This book explains the personality disorders and their treatment in terms of a broad biopsychosocial model.

A detailed and comprehensive account of the features of personality disorders with emphasis on strategies for clinical management.

This comprehensive evidence-based book provides a broad and in-depth coverage of personality disorders across a variety of patient groups and treatment settings. Emmelkamp and Kamphuis bring together research examining psychological and biological variables that may play a role in the development of personality disorders. This book explores: Descriptions of personality disorders Diagnosis and assessment Epidemiology and course Aetiology Treatment strategies. Illustrated throughout with clinical vignettes, as well as scholarly reviews, Personality Disorders offers excellent coverage on all aspects of personality disorder, and will be extremely informative for students and practitioners alike.

Personality Disorder offers a comprehensive and accessible collection of papers that will be practically useful to practitioners working in secure and non-secure settings with patients who have personality disorders. This book brings together fourteen classic papers, which address the impact that working with personality disorder patients can have on staff. It also offers theoretical explanations for personality disorder, and explores other issues such as the concept of boundaries in clinical practice, psychiatric staff as attachment figures and the relationship between severity of personality disorder and childhood experiences. Each paper is introduced with contextual material, and is followed by a series of questions that are intended to be used as educational exercises. This book will be essential reading for clinical and forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, community psychiatric nurses, social workers and students.

This book considers personality disorders and how they are treated within the institutional context of prisons and hospitals and offers practical guidance on assessment, formulation and integrated treatment planning. Treating Personality Disorder offers contributions from professionals in psychiatry, nursing and psychology as well as prison officers and service managers and areas of discussion include: delivering integrated treatment to people with personality disorders issues and challenges for the clinical professional the role of the psychiatrist in treating personality disorder Treating Personality Disorder will provide a timely and valuable guide for all professionals involved in the treatment and management of serious personality disorders within an institutional framework.

Providing a cost-effective treatment model that is respectful of patients' needs, their strengths, and their limitations, this book presents the first dynamic and coherent approach to group treatment for the chronically mentally ill. By structuring members' variable attendance, the flexibly bound model, which utilizes group dynamic principles to maximize therapeutic opportunities, respects the actual behavior of many chronically ill persons, making this treatment format available to a broad portion of this population. Illustrated with numerous case vignettes, the book outlines the elements of supportive treatment and therapeutic goals and then describes in detail specific strategies and interventions.

It has been almost twenty years since DSM-III created a major shift in psychi atric classification procedures and in diagnostic and treatment practice by introducing the multi-axial system and, for our patients specifically, the Axis II: Personality Disorders. Researchers and clinicians were forced to focus on many issues related to the field of personality and its disorders. This meant an immense impetus for research, both empirical and theoretical. Many recent developments are described in this book, as reviews or as original articles. This book also covers developments in Europe as well as in North America. Important questions still remain unanswered, such as: What is the relationship between the different clusters: A, B, & C? Are we talking about dimensions, categories, or typologies? What can be done for patients who have more than one personality disorder? Is a pro typical approach required? Consequently, is a multiconceptual approach in treatment and research required? The authors contribute to this discus sion and provide guidelines for further thinking in research and treatment planning. For clinicians, it is of major importance to know whether the disorder can be influ enced by treatment, and whether permanent change is really possible. A very impor tant question is whether a person indeed has a personality disorder, and how this diagnosis affects clinical practice.

This book brings together a series of experts and experienced clinicians to describe and discuss a series of BPD cases in a manner that emphasizes core descriptive and diagnostic features, generalizable principles and techniques, and key take-home messages for clinicians at all levels of experience. The book emphasizes consideration for the disorder from multiple perspectives to help identify effective responses to common clinical challenges and decision points. To enhance interest, narrative, and readability, each chapter uses a consistent format to present a common clinical challenge along with an effective therapeutic response and discussion of relevant theoretical and empirically validated principles. Each chapter title contains a patient’s (fictionalized) name and a subheading identifying the clinical dilemma or approach to be illustrated. The text includes key points and chapter summaries to help pull together the most important takeaways as quick reference. Borderline Personality Disorder is a vital resource for psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, general internists, social workers, and all medical professions working with patients suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.

Explore and understand new approaches in Borderline therapy. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) lags far behind other disorders such as schizophrenia in terms of research and treatment interventions. Debates about diagnosis, etiology, neurobiology, genetics, medication, and treatment still persist. Borderline Personality Disorder: Meeting the Challenges to Successful Treatment brings together over two dozen of the field’s leading experts in one enlightening text. The book also offers mental health providers a view of BPD from the perspectives of sufferers as well as family members to foster an understanding of the experiences of relatives who are often devastated by their loved ones’ struggles with this common disorder. Although there has been an increasing interest in BPD in terms of research funding, treatment advancement, and acknowledgment of family perspective over the last decade, the fact remains that the disorder is still highly stigmatized. Borderline Personality Disorder: Meeting the Challenges to Successful Treatment provides social workers and other mental health clinicians with practical access to the knowledge necessary for effective treatment in a single volume of the most current research, information, and management considerations. This important collection explores the latest methods and approaches to treating BPD patients and supporting their families. This useful text also features handy worksheets and numerous tables that present pertinent information clearly. Chapters in Borderline Personality Disorder: Meeting the Challenges to Successful Treatment include: an overview of Borderline Personality Disorder confronting myths and stereotypes about BPD biological underpinnings of BPD BPD and the need for community - a social worker’s perspective on an evidence-based approach to managing suicidal behavior in BPD patients Dialectical Behavior Therapy supportive psychotherapy for borderline patients Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving (STEPPS) Mentalization-based Treatment fostering validating responses in families Family Connections: an education and skills training program for family member wellbeing and much more! Full of practical, useable ideas for the betterment of those affected by BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder: Meeting the Challenges to Successful Treatment is a valuable resource for social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors, as well as students, researchers, and academics in the mental health field, family members, loved ones, and anyone directly affected by BPD.