Aggression In Personality Disorders And Perversions

In this important new book, Dr. Otto F. Kernberg, one of the world's foremost psychoanalysts, 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 recent 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 rich variety of clinical illustrations. The book begins by relating the dual-drive theory of libido and aggression to contemporary developments in affect theory. Dr. Kernberg then applies this general theory of affects to aggression, which in its pathological form centers on the affect of hatred. He analyzes sado-masochistic, hysterical-hysteroid, and narcissistic-antisocial spectrums of personality disorders, emphasizing how aggression is structured in each group. Dr. Kernberg next describes and updates the theoretical frame underlying his approach to the treatment of these disorders, outlines their clinical manifestations, and illustrates their diagnosis and treatment, ranging from standard psychoanalysis with infantile personalities, to psychoanalytic psychotherapy with borderline personalities, to the psychotherapeutic approach to the treatment of psychosis and hospital milieu treatment in the management of highly regressed patients. In the final section, Dr. Kernberg links the findings from psychoanalytic approaches to personality disorders with those from the psychoanalytic study of sexual perversions.

In this book a leading psychoanalytic clinician and theoretician presents his thoughts on the latest psychodynamic developments and insights related to treatment of severe personality disorders. Dividing his discussions into two sections, one on psychopathology and the other on psychotherapy, Dr. Otto F. Kernberg examines borderline personality disorder, narcissism, sexual inhibition, transference and countertransference, suicidal behavior, and eating disorders. In each chapter he integrates the ideas of European and Latin American psychoanalytic thinkers, bringing them to the attention of English-speaking readers. This book includes a selection of recently published journal articles. Their collection into one volume makes readily available Dr. Kernberg’s present thinking on an important subject.

The book explores the concepts of personality in the context of its neurobiological and intrapsychic determinants, proposes a new classification and new methods of psychotherapeutic interventions, expands the analysis of severe narcissistic pathology, and details the many complications in the sexual life of patients with personality disorders.

In this book a leading psychoanalytic clinician and theoretician presents his thoughts on the latest psychodynamic developments and insights related to treatment of severe personality disorders. Dividing his discussions into two sections, one on psychopathology and the other on psychotherapy, Dr. Otto F. Kernberg examines borderline personality disorder, narcissism, sexual inhibition, transference and countertransference, suicidal behavior, and eating disorders. In each chapter he integrates the ideas of European and Latin American psychoanalytic thinkers, bringing them to the attention of English-speaking readers. This book includes a selection of recently published journal articles. Their collection into one volume makes readily available Dr. Kernberg's present thinking on an important subject.

In this book, Kernberg first distinguishes, then interrelates psychoanalytic, clinical psychiatric, and neurobiological perspectives in a variety of areas, beginning with severe personality disorders and extending to love, destructiveness, mourning, spirituality, and the future of psychoanalytic inquiry. Dr. Kernberg is renowned for his work with borderline and narcissistic patients, and in this book, he offers new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of the most severe personality disorders, particularly the spectrum of severe narcissistic psychopathology. His effort to relate psychoanalytic to neurobiological findings continues in two fascinating areas -- the study of sexual love and of religious experience -- and he examines object relations theory in relation to these two phenomena. Kernberg's analysis of love and aggression is both bold and nuanced and will captivate the professional psychotherapist as well as the psychologically astute general reader.

Impulsivity and aggression have undergone considerable research scrutiny in recent years and will comprise a major research topic in psychiatry over the next decade. Violence is a public health issue of great concern and advances in our knowledge of the psychiatry of aggression and disorders of impulse control are therefore of tremendous importance. Specifically addressing diagnostic, epidemiologic, evolutionary, neurobiological, neuropsychological and legal issues, this timely text brings together a large array of diverse data to provide a unique, comprehensive and up-to-date account of this subject. Specific impulse control disorders, personality disorders, and related disorders such as self-mutilation, bulimia, substance abuse and neurological trauma are discussed. Treatment strategies?articularly psychopharmacology, new agents undergoing trials and psychological approaches?are reviewed. No single work has yet attempted to address systematically the phenomenology, neurobiology and treatment of impulsivity, aggression and disorders of impulse control. Written by leading world authorities in their field, this text will have a wide audience including researchers and clinicians in psychiatry, psychology, psychopharmacology and mental health care, as well as those in the fields of social and health policy.

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, Overcoming Resistant 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: * The Needy/Dependent Prototype * The Sociable/Histrionic Prototype * The Confident/Narcissistic Prototype * The Nonconforming/Antisocial Prototype * The Assertive/Sadistic Prototype * The Conscientious/Compulsive Prototype * The Skeptical/Negativistic Prototype 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.