A revolutionary, personalized psychotherapy approach for the treatment of Axis II personality disorders, by renowned expert Dr. Theodore Millon Acknowledging the primacy of the whole person, Moderating Severe Personality Disorders: A Personalized Psychotherapy Approach takes into account all of the complexities of human nature - family influences, culture, neurobiological processes, unconscious memories, and so on--illustrating that no part of human nature should lie outside the scope of a clinician's regard. Part of a three book series, this book provides you with a unique combination of conceptual background and step-by-step practical advice to guide your treatment of Axis II personality disorders. Detailed case studies are provided throughout the text to illustrate the strategies of personalized psychotherapy for: Retiring/Schizoid Personality Patterns Shy/Avoidant Personality Patterns Pessimistic/Depressive Personality Patterns Aggrieved/Masochistic Personality Patterns Eccentric/Schizotypal Personality Patterns Capricious/Borderline Personality Patterns Destined to become an essential reference for trainees and professionals, this book makes a revolutionary call to return therapy to the natural reality of each patient's life, seamlessly guiding you in understanding the personality and treatment of the whole, unique, yet complex person.

Q & A format/discusses the 'as-if' personality/malignant narcissism/projective identification/cumulative trauma/etc.

In this important book, one of the world's foremost psychoanalysts provides the clinician with tools to diagnose and treat severe cases of personality disorder, including borderline and narcissistic structures. Dr. Kernberg not only describes techniques he has found useful in clinical practice but also further develops theories formulated in his previous work and critically reviews other recent contributions. "A splendid book . . . of great value for anyone involved in psychotherapy with patients suffering from one or another variety of personality disorder, as well as for anyone who is teaching or doing research in this field. . . . An outstandingly fine and valuable book.--Harold F. Searles, M.D., Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease "Kernberg is a synthesizing, creative eclectic on the contemporary psychoanalytic and psychodynamic scene, broadly based in theory and in practice, a powerful intelligence, a prolific writer, and a man of ideas....This is a challenging and provocative book."--Alan A. Stone, M.D., American Journal of Psychiatry "A major work that brings together in one volume a host of clinical insights into people with a variety of severe personality disorders.... Anyone who has attempted to work with patients with severe personality disorders will be rewarding by studying this book." --Robert D. Gillman, Psychoanalytic Quarterly

Clinical Assessment and Management of Severe Personality Disorders (Clinical Practice 35) offers the clinician working in the community a practicable approach to the treatment of patients with personality disorders. Clearly written, with minimal use of jargon, this book focuses on issues relevant to the clinician in private practice, including the diagnosis of a wide range of personality disorders and alternative management approaches. Recognizing patients with a personality disorder, differentiating one disorder from another, and using psychological tests in the diagnosis and treatment of personality disorders are among the clinical assessment issues covered. Two commonly encountered issues -- the assessment and management of patients using a neuropsychiatric approach and treatment of patients with comorbid symptoms and personality disorders -- are discussed. This book takes a broad approach to the management of personality disorders, moving beyond individual dynamic psychotherapy as the only treatment option. Pharmacological management of patients with personality disorders and differential management for patients in various settings are described. A discussion of the etiological impact and implications of early life experiences on the patient offers valuable insight for psychotherapeutic management. Clinicians are also provided with a useful framework for interacting and intervening with the families of patients with personality disorders.

This book integrates psychiatry and psychoanalysis to present deeper and sounder clinical profiles of the personality disorders than have been hitherto available.

In a fully revised and expanded second edition, this landmark work brings together in one volume the most important current theories of personality disorder. Written by the theorists themselves, all of the chapters have been extensively rewritten to reflect a decade's worth of significant research developments, and two entirely new chapters have been added. Comprehensive and authoritative, this is an indispensable resource and text in a rapidly developing field. Experts from across the theoretical spectrum present their respective approaches, including psychodynamic, interpersonal, attachment, ecological, psychometric, and neurobiological perspectives. Following a consistent format to facilitate reference and comparison, each chapter explicates the core assumptions of the theory at hand and reviews the extent to which it has been validated by empirical research. Coverage includes the ways in which each theory enhances our understanding of causation, classification, mechanisms, and risk factors of personality pathology, as well as how it has contributed to measurement, diagnosis, and treatment. The volume also explores similarities and differences among the various theories and identifies potential avenues of integration. This volume belongs on the desks of clinicians, researchers, and students in clinical psychology, clinical social work, and psychiatry. It serves as a uniquely informative text in advanced undergraduate and graduate-level courses.

In this book, Otto F. Kernberg explores the role of aggression in severe personality disorders and in normal and perverse sexuality, integrating new developments in psychoanalytic theory with findings from clinical work with severely regressed patients. The book also integrates Dr Kernberg's studies of the descriptive, structural, and psychodynamic features of problems stemming from pathological aggression with the vicissitudes of their psychoanalytic treatment. Finally, Dr Kernberg demonstrates the importance of differential diagnosis for effective psychoanalytically inspired treatment of these disorders, providing a variety of clincial illustrations.

People with personality disorders are to be found in all branches of psychiatric services, from the outpatient and community care through to acute inpatient care. Their behaviour is difficult, manipulative, threatening and they are hard to manage in institutional settings. Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder is based on unique research study conducted in the three English high security hospitals - Ashworth, Rampton and Broadmoor. Through in-depth analysis of an extensive questionnaire survey followed by personal interviews, Len Bowers shows how positive or negative attitudes to PD patients arise and are maintained over time, as well as discusses what impact they have upon nurses and the care they provide to patients, and draws some practical conclusions. The difficulties facing staff who care for and treat PD patients are enormous, and constitute a significant personal challenge for the psychiatric professional of any discipline. For the first time this book provides details of the most effective ways of creating a positive context for working with personality disorder and contains a blueprint for training and organisational structures across the professional spectrum.

In Treatment of Severe Personality Disorders: Resolution of Aggression and Recovery of Eroticism, the influential psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Otto Kernberg presents an integrated update of the current knowledge of personality disorders, their neurobiological and psychodynamic determinants, and a specific psychodynamic psychotherapy geared to resolve the psychopathology of these conditions -- namely, the syndrome of identity diffusion and its influence on the capacity for emotional wellbeing and gratifying relationships with significant others. The author updates the findings of the Personality Disorders Institute of the Weill Cornell Medical College Department of Psychiatry, which are derived from the empirical research and clinical investigation of severe personality disorders, and addresses the effectiveness of transference-focused psychotherapy, a specific psychodynamic treatment for these disorders developed at the Institute. The volume focuses particularly on an essential group of techniques common to all psychoanalytically derived treatments and clarifies the corresponding differential features of various psychodynamic treatment approaches. In prose both precise and evocative, the author: Examines the classification of personality disorders, the way competing viewpoints have influenced the evolution of DSM-III and DSM-IV, and the impact of new knowledge on the classification of DSM-5, with emphasis on how conflicts between scientific and political considerations have hindered the classification of personality disorders in the past. Illustrates in detail how present knowledge of neurobiological structures and neurotransmitters intertwines with the psychodynamic determinants of how psychic experience is organized. Explores psychodynamic psychotherapies and contemporary developments and controversies in the field. For example, the role of interpretation in borderline pathology is examined using a clinical case, and a new formulation of supportive psychodynamic psychotherapy is described. Addresses severe narcissistic pathology -- its diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. Specifically, the book presents an overview of treatment options for severe narcissistic personality disorder, explores the distortions in verbal communication that may arise during psychotherapy with these patients, and focuses on the differential diagnosis of antisocial behavior. Examines the diagnosis and treatment of sexual pathology, and explores the vicissitudes of the love lives of patients with severe personality disorders. Concludes with a chapter on the essential preconditions in the education of psychodynamic psychotherapists to carry out the challenging and complex psychotherapeutic work in this field. In describing both the limits and the advances in therapeutic effectiveness, the Treatment of Severe Personality Disorders: Resolution of Aggression and Recovery of Eroticism performs a great service, and it will surely become a classic of the psychoanalytic literature.

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.