Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality

by John F. Clarkin, Otto F. Kernberg

For therapists treating patients with borderline personality organization, transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) has proven to be a remarkably successful approach that effectively targets the pathology of character. The product of more than 25 years of development, it draws on advances in object relations theory and attachment theory with the goal of not merely treating symptoms but changing the patient's underlying personality and quality of life.
Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality describes principles of intervention and contains a wealth of practical guidelines on how to apply TFP to individual patients on a session-by-session basis. This groundbreaking treatment manual focuses on the analysis of the transference, showing how to help patients relax their defenses and become active participants in the therapeutic process. The authors describe techniques for seeing past the wall of behavioral and cognitive dissonance typically thrown up by the borderline patient, identifying a patient's conflicting self-conceptions and object representations, and immersing oneself in the turbulent currents of the borderline narrative stream while maintaining the clinical distance required to be a constructive force in patients' lives.

Genres: Psychology

304 pages, Hardcover

First published December 28, 1998

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read sections of this book over and over and over, and I expect I will continue to do so over my career. The approach is radical, taking seriously what goes on in peoples minds, and it's more complicated, sure, but it's liberating, too.

This is simply the best book I have ever read on the treatment of complex mental health. The authors deliver example interpretations of split and projected object relations with a profound clarity that often left me reeling.

[Mohsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

regarding tfp and kernbergs ideas around borderline patients, i think this is a good book to start. the book is well written in a simple but with full of case materials and teaching points. i liked it as all the other works of these authors.

[Dayna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take what you like, leave the rest. Really interesting to think about how people's internalized self and other affects their relationships throughout their life journey.