Psychoanalytic diagnosis : understanding personality structure in the clinical process

English language

Published May 8, 1994

ISBN:
978-0-89862-199-0
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5 stars (1 review)

1 edition

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5 stars

There aren’t many textbooks that you can sit and read (except, perhaps, my own), but this 1994 textbook was written for psychotherapists who trained without getting a basic foundation in the psychoanalytic model, and it has many features that made it an enjoyable read for me. It begins with a basic introduction to classical Freudian drive theory and some subsequent modifications, then the developmental levels of personality structure, and the levels of psychopathology that may occur within a particular type of character organization. The author then reviews the basic types of defensive processes, dividing them into primitive and higher-order. The second part of the book comprises a chapter for each of nine personality types, psychopathic, narcissistic, schizoid, paranoid, depressive and manic, masochistic, obsessive and compulsive, hysterical, and dissociative. Each chapter is organized into sections discussing drive, affect and temperament; defensives used; object relations; the self; transference and countertransference; therapy; and …