Borderline Psychology Revivals

Originally published in 1992, Borderline presents a unique study of the disturbed mind. Professional psychologist Peter Chadwick draws upon his own personal experience of madness to provide a valuable exploration of the psychology of paranoia and schizophrenia. The book goes beyond a narrowly focused analytical approach to examine schizophrenia from as many perspectives as possible. Using participant observation, introspection, case study and experimental methods, Chadwick shows how paranoid and delusional thinking are only exaggerations of processes to be found in normal cognition. Impressed by the similarities between the thinking of mystics and psychotics, he argues that some forms of madness are closely related to profound mystical experience and intuition, but that these are expressed in a distorted form in the psychotic mind. He explores the many positive characteristics and capabilities of paranoid patients, providing a sympathetic account which balances the heavily negative constructions usually put on paranoia in the research literature. Borderline provides many novel insights into madness and raises important questions as to how psychosis and psychotics are to be evaluated. It will be essential reading for all practising professionals and students in clinical psychology and psychiatry, and for everyone involved in the treatment, understanding and management of schizophrenia.

When the late Heinz Kohut defined psychoanalysis as the science of empathy and introspection, he sparked a debate that has animated psychoanalytic discourse ever since. What is the relationship of empathy to psychoanalysis? Is it a constituent of analytical technique, an integral aspect of the therapeutic action of analysis, or simply a metaphor for a mode of observation better understood via ‘classical’ theory and terminology? The dialogue about empathy, which is really a dialogue about the nature of the analytic process, continues in this two-volume set, originally published in 1984. In Volume I, several illuminating attempts to define empathy are followed by Kohut’s essay, ‘Introspection, Empathy, and the Semicircle of Mental Health.’ Kohut’s paper, in turn, ushers in a series of original contributions on ‘Empathy as a Perspective in Psychoanalysis.’ The volume ends with five papers which strive to demarcate an empathic approach to various areas of artistic endeavour, including the appreciation of visual art. Volume II continues the dialogue with a series of developmental studies which explore the role of empathy in early child care at the same time as they chart the emergence of the young child’s capacity to empathize. In the concluding section, ‘Empathy in Psychoanalytic Work,’ contributors and discussants return to the arena of technique. They not only theorize about empathy in relation to analytic understanding and communication, but address issues of nosology, considering how the empathic vantage point may be utilized in the treatment of patients with borderline and schizophrenic pathology. In their critical attention to the many dimensions of empathy – philosophical, developmental, therapeutic, artistic – the contributors collectively bear witness to the fact that Kohut has helped to shape new questions, but not set limits to the search for answers. The product of their efforts is an anatomical exploration of a topic whose relevance for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is only beginning to be understood.

Most of the existing psychodynamic literature approaches the treatment process from one particular theoretical perspective or another. Yet, what contemporary psychotherapists need most is practical information that transcends individual perspectives. After all, they must be able to treat patients who suffer from structural conflict, structural deficit, and relational conflict, and they must be able to understand the theories of therapeutic action associated with these concepts of psychopathology in relation to one another. Originally published in 1996, Understanding Therapeutic Action: Psychodynamic Concepts of Cure both surveys different theories of therapeutic action and offers an integrative model of treatment. Editor Lawrence E. Lifson has brought together contributors who are among the leading theoreticians and practitioners of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Their chapters’ cover all the major perspectives on therapeutic action and are organized into sections covering structural and object relations theories; the self as the focus of therapeutic action; and an integrative approach to the concept of cure. The emphasis throughout is on the translation of theory into clinical practice, with attention given to the contributions of patient and therapist alike in the curative process. Providing clinicians with a comprehensive overview and synthesis of the different models of therapeutic action, this collection is an illuminating exercise in comparative psychotherapy and a valuable tool for enhancing the applicability and effectiveness of clinical work.

Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4 This book has been replaced by Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-4193-5.

Originally published in 1940, this classic study of two schizophrenic case-histories further opened up the seemingly intractable problem of this condition; a task preceded by Jung’s own Psychology of Dementia Praecox. It was Baynes’s grasp of the meaning of the symbol coupled with his wide scholarship that enable him to explore the case-histories in such remarkable and fruitful depth, thus linking pathological psychology through graphic expression and the dream of the myths of mankind and the universal man. This was truly a scientific task. In case 1, the series of dreams, fantasies and active imagination, fully illustrated by the patients’ spontaneous paintings, suggested to him a kind of mythological imagery. Baynes then demonstrates the emergence and development of a hero myth together with its therapeutic effect upon the patient, as an inner personal experience of death and rebirth. Baynes also applied the methods of synthesis to the understanding of modern art and its reflection of the spirit of the times – a realization of the basic split in the socio-religious structure of European Culture. In case 2, the subject was an artist, and out of his own split he seemed to have created a symbolic bridge that would be a therapeutic bridge for himself and a possible model for curing the evil of the times in which we then were living.

Originally published in 1983, Reflections on Self Psychology records the development of a powerful initiative to alter psychoanalytic theory and practice, and an evaluative questioning of this initiative. It presents a dialogue that developed at the Boston Symposium of 1980 between vigorous proponents of self psychology, equally energetic critics, and many participants between these polar positions. This book attempts to capture within its pages not only the content of what was presented, explored, and evaluated in Boston, but also a sense of the people, about 1,000 strong, who exchanged their ideas on and off the podium – and the remarkable spirit of open inquiry that invigorated these proceedings. The book, as was the meeting, is organized to explore four subjects: the development of the self: infant research; the implications of self psychology for psychoanalytic practice; self psychology and psychotherapy; and the implications of self psychology for psychoanalytic theory. The final section of the book is devoted to an essay by Heinz Kohut that provides an integrated response to the issues and criticisms raised in the course of the symposium. This essay while based on extemporaneous responses by Kohut during different phases of the meeting, is, in its written version, a cohesive, carefully revised, and edited statement prepared in the mellowing period following the meeting and before Kohut’s untimely death.

Freud once humorously remarked that "Anyone who wants to make a living from the treatment of nervous patients must clearly be able to do something to help them". It is amazing how frequently this simple precept is ignored and, when a patient does not get well, how often the failure is attributed to lack of proper motivation, diminutive ego strength, latent schizophrenia, and a multitude of assorted resistances. Difficulties that arise during therapy are not due to a deliberate conspiracy of neglect on the part of the therapist. They usually come about because of obstructive situations that develop in work with patients with which the therapist is unprepared to cope. During his psychiatric career the author, who spent time both teaching and supervising, collected and collated questions from students and graduate therapists who had raised concerns about psychotherapy that related to such obstructive situations. Originally published in 1982, this volume contains both those questions and his answers.

Transference focused psychotherapy (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. Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality is an important professional resource for all mental health professionals.