Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality - Hardcover

Clarkin, John F.; Yeomans, Frank E.; Kernberg, Otto F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471170429 ISBN 13: 9780471170426

Publisher: Wiley, 1998

Synopsis

"This book contains the most readable and understandable description of BPD from a dynamic perspective that I have ever read. It is an eye-opener and must reading for anyone working with this population.

This book goes far beyond any other psychodynamic psychotherapy manual that I've read. It not only delves into the relationship and transference, as most do, but gives some straightforward and clear descriptions of very important interventions that are specific to this population.

This book breathes fresh air into psychodynamic psychotherapy. It includes not only a description of the pathology that is understandable even to the non-dynamic therapist, it offers rich descriptions of the specific interventions and their indications that can be effective with the borderline patient." —Larry Beutler, Graduate School of Education, University of California

"Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality is an excellent guide to the treatment of these difficult and frequently intractable patients who test the mettle of any psychotherapist who attempts the daunting task of engaging them in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The authors have presented a manual that is practical, lucid, and yet sophisticated." —Hans H. Strupp, Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University

"In this era of demands for greater accountability in documenting the practice and outcomes of psychotherapy, Clarkin, Yeomans, and Kernberg continue to pursue the challenge of making more transparent what often seems elusive in the treatment of patients with borderline personality disorder. They take seriously the obligation to articulate as plainly as possible the theory behind their work and its translation into 'hands-on' practice." —Paul Pilkonis, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

"This book offers us an opportunity to share in [Drs. Clarkin, Yeomans, and Kernberg's] success. It is a must for anyone who works with borderline patients." —Robert Michels, MD, The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center

"This admirable guide's many verbatim examples are organized into an expansion of the well-known and impressively effective Kernberg-style psychotherapy treatment system for borderline patients. If you treat borderline patients in psychotherapy, you need this guide for its high-power focus on the special problems of these patients." —Lester Luborsky, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania

Working with a severely reduced emotional palette, the borderline personality inhabits a stark world populated by comic book heroes and villains, victims and destroyers, saints and serpents, endlessly vying for dominance. As any psychotherapist who treats borderline patients knows, entering the fray in an effort to help establish harmony among the warring factions is an undertaking fraught with danger. Even the canniest therapist is at risk of being drawn into the seductive whirlwind of shifting roles and power struggles, only to become another unwitting agent of chaos. What is needed, then, is an approach that provides sufficient clinical structure to contain the destructive forces that can undermine the therapeutic process while remaining flexible enough to allow the therapist the freedom to safely interact with and respond constructively to the roles thrust upon him or her by the patient. This groundbreaking book describes such an approach—transference focused psychotherapy (TFP).

TFP is a sophisticated new variant of psychodynamic interventions centering on the analysis of the transference. Its main goal is to bring a patient's unconscious conflicts to the surface so that they can be actively worked through by the client and therapist within a rigorous clinical framework.

An elegantly humane yet clinically rigorous approach to interventions with one of the most challenging categories of personality disorders, Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality is an important professional resource for all mental health professionals.

About this title

About the Author

JOHN F. CLARKIN, PhD, is Co-Director of the Personality Disorder Institute at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Westchester Division, and Professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry at the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. He is the Executive Officer of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. FRANK E. YEOMANS, MD, PhD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. He is a Fellow in the Personality Disorder Institute and is in private practice in White Plains and New York City. OTTO F. KERNBERG, MD, is the Director of the Personality Disorder Institute at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Westchester Division, and Professor of Psychiatry at the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. He is a training and supervising analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and is currently the President of the International Psychoanalytic Association.

From the Inside Flap

Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Working with a severely reduced emotional palette, the borderline personality inhabits a stark world populated by comic book heroes and villains, victims and destroyers, saints and serpents, endlessly vying for dominance. As any psychotherapist who treats borderline patients knows, entering the fray in an effort to help establish harmony among the warring factions is an undertaking fraught with danger. Even the canniest therapist is at risk of being drawn into the seductive whirlwind of shifting roles and power struggles, only to become another unwitting agent of chaos. What is needed, then, is an approach that provides sufficient clinical structure to contain the destructive forces that can undermine the therapeutic process while remaining flexible enough to allow the therapist the freedom to safely interact with and respond constructively to the roles thrust upon him or her by the patient. This groundbreaking book describes such an approach—transference focused psychotherapy (TFP). TFP is a sophisticated new variant of psychodynamic interventions centering on the analysis of the transference. Its main goal is to bring a patient’s unconscious conflicts to the surface so that they can be actively worked through by the client and therapist within a rigorous clinical framework. In Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality, the authors describe TFP principles and methods and provide clear guidelines on how to apply them to individual patients on a session-by-session basis. With the help of numerous vignettes and case examples, they clearly outline the various stages of the TFP therapeutic process, from initial assessment to termination. Readers learn techniques for seeing past the wall of behavioral and cognitive dissonance typically thrown up by the borderline patient and to identify and label a patient’s radically conflicting self-conceptions and object representations. They learn how to immerse themselves in the turbulent currents of the borderline narrative stream, while, at the same time, maintaining the clinical distance required to be a constructive force in their patients’ lives. And they learn how to get patients to relax their defenses, to become active participants in the process of reconciling the warring factions within, and to find the courage to appreciate themselves and others in their full complexity as human beings. An elegantly humane yet clinically rigorous approach to interventions with one of the most challenging categories of personality disorders, Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality is an important professional resource for all mental health professionals.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471170429
• ISBN 13: 9780471170426
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400