Three Characters: Narcissist, Borderline, Manic Depressive

by Christopher Bollas

It is important to point out that these essays are about character types; it is not to suggest that all borderlines, narcissists or manic depressives are the same. Everyone is an individual and are who they are for many different reasons. What they have in common is a typical relation between their subjectivity and the world they inhabit. In other words, Christopher Bollas has identified the axioms that these individuals share. Following a discussion of the features of each type, the axioms are delivered in the characters own voice. By placing ourselves within their own logic, we can begin to identify and empathize with them. At the root of all character disorders there is mental pain and each disorder is an intelligent attempt to solve an existential problem. If the clinician can grasp their specific intelligence and help the analysand to understand this, then a natural process of healing can begin.



Three Characters is a masterclass based on decades of lectures presented to psychoanalysts, analytical psychologists and psychotherapists and a must-read for all psychoanalytic enthusiasts.

Genres: Psychology

90 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2021

About the author

Christopher Bollas, Ph.D. is a Member of the International Psychoanalytical Association and has been practicing for over fifty years. Former Director of Education at the Austen Riggs Center he was Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis at the Institute of Child Neuropsychiatry of the University of Rome. He is a prolific author and international lecturer.

Reviews

[Taylor Barton Fronzaglio · Rating 5 out of 5]

M I N D B L O W I N G

[Psicologorroico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chiaro e molto dettagliato, Bollas descrive perfettamente questi tre caratteri.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bollas writes with a deftness and clarity often not found in analytic writers. With a deep awareness of analytic thought before him he adds his own thought with a sureness and solidness that will help any clinician working with troubled people. There is a deep respect in his writing for those suffering. And for clinicians his technical suggestions and ways of understanding patients are sure to help.

[Alessandra Bucca · Rating 3 out of 5]

libro di psicodinamica nel quale si delineano gli aspetti salienti dei vissuti interiori e dei caratteri di tre diverse personalità: borderline, narcisista e maniaco-depressivo. Progetto ambizioso e di non facile accessibilità per chi non abbia una buona conoscenza dell'approccio psicodinamico. Personalmente non ho apprezzato il libro appieno perchè molto passaggi mi sono risultati ostici e non comprensibili, dal momento che non faccio parte della schiera dei conoscitori della materia.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro interessante e analizza bene i tre caratteri in modo piuttosto comprensibile anche se scientifico, a tratti un po' noioso

[javor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid and understandable intro to the etiology and treatment of the three eponymous character disorders. Bollas argues for a relational-adjacent analytic technique that seeks to create an empathetic holding environment whereby the patient's character axioms and fundamental idioms can relay in circuit with those of the analyst's such that the schizoid deficits from the patient's pre-oedipal life can be progressively filled by a full and humanized other which enacts a characterological transformation. Bollas is unfailingly optimistic in his belief that even those with supposedly incurable character disorders can undergo substantial personality change, which is a heartening opinion amid much of psychoanalytic literature. Whether a child replaces the unreliable other with the self that leaves an empty internal world, introjects the pain of the environment-mother in order to sustain the relation to the maternal object, or defensively turns to internal mental events when met with an underwhelming and unresponsive external object world, in each case the child establishes certain axioms around a 'missing core' of their personality; in each case, though, Bollas always argues against the notion that such individuals are unanalyzable. These axioms can always present in the transference, even if not in the typical neurotic fashion, which, when mirrored and presented back to the patient, allow for evacuated beta elements to be symbolized as alpha elements that can restructure the core of the self left underdeveloped in the maternal order and onwards. Overall an insightful book with a hopeful and positive outlook on the possibility of analytic treatment for personality disorders.

[Manu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Molto chiaro!