Character Styles [Hardcover]

Stephen M. Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0393701719 | ISBN-13: 978-0393701715 | Edition: 1

How basic existential and developmental issues underlie the severe pathology of personality disorders and symptoms of neurosis in character styles.

Johnson shows how basic life issues underlie the severe pathology of personality disorder, the nagging symptoms of neurosis, and the more functional coping and adaptation of the character styles. Johnson’s dimensional model captures the complexity of the human personality, while allowing for variability not seen in categorical systems such as DSM-IV. His descriptive names of the character styles not only link childhood experiences to later personality and psychopathology but also put flesh and bones on psychiatric diagnosis.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen M. Johnson, Ph.D., is a professor and chair of the faculty at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Menlo Park, California. He divides his time between clinical teaching and the private practice of psychotherapy in Menlo Park and San Francisco.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (May 17, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393701719
• ISBN-13: 978-0393701715
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #50 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Personality Disorders
  • #80 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Compulsive Behavior

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Buried Treasure, May 2, 2001

By 

Stephanie Silva (Urban Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Character Styles (Hardcover)

Over a ten year period, Stephen M. Johnson wrote a series of extraordinarily useful and well organized books integrating theories of personality development and therapeutic objectives at neurotic and borderline functioning. In the introduction here he writes about his integrated theory: "It is not psychoanalytic, not object relations, not self-psychology or ego psychology. It is not behavioral or cognitive or affective. It is not characterological, developmental, interactive, phenomenological. It is not theoretical, empirical, experiential, intuitive, or deductive. It is all of this and more in a mix. It attempts to answer important questions with the information available. For each of us who are curious about such questions, this is what we must do."

Character Styles includes revised chapters from Characterological Transformation, Humanizing the Narcissistic Style and The Symbiotic Character, but the addition here of chapters on masochistic, hysterical and obsessive-compulsive characters makes the entire series a little masterpiece. Dr. Johnson's work seems to have grown most out of The Symbiotic Character since, as he writes, "the strategies found successful in liberating the symbiotic character can be of nearly universal significance." The first books in the series contain diagrams for energetic body work based on Reich and Lowen that are curiously missing here.

The major character styles he addresses include The Hated Child: The Schizoid Experience, The Abandoned Child: The Symbiotic Withdrawal, The Owned Child: The Symbiotic Character, The Used Child: The Narcissistic Experience, The Defeated Child: Social Masochism and the Patterns of Self-Defeat, The Exploited Child: Hysterical Defenses and the Histrionic Personality and The Disciplined Child: The Obsessive-Compulsive Personality.

My copy of Character Styles is dogeared and contains scribbled notes that are a record of the development of my own understanding and thinking about personality over the last ten years. I owe that development and understanding and where it's taken my thought today much more than I've realized to Dr. Johnson's insightful, compassionate, well-referenced work.

59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This non-psychologist couldn't put it down!, July 1, 2000

By 

"rrbeatty" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Character Styles (Hardcover)

Once I started a chapter, I *had* to read it through no matter the hour. Despite the jargon, despite the too infrequent "for example"'s, he clearly describes a dozen friends, relatives and, of course, myself -- *anyone* whose early childhood is known to me. His uncanny grasp of my "inner life" experience astounded me and was worth the price right there. I particularly appreciate his using the same structure for each chapter, always winding up with that style's Therapeutic Objectives. Professionals should also appreciate his indicating what difficulties a therapist can encounter when treating a given style. This is one of the three most important and rewarding books in my forty years of reading.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paradigm Shift, November 11, 2005

By 

G. Barker "GBark" (owensboro, ky United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Character Styles (Hardcover)

This book was the only text used in my graduate Psychopathology class. Five years later I have gone back again and again for use in my practice. Johnson brilliantly integrates most of the psychodynamic schools of thought to construct a "characterological-developmental" model of motivation, personality development, and treatment of psychopathology. He delineates components of character in terms of etiology, symptoms, cognitive styles, defenses,pathogenic beliefs, self and object representations, and affective characteristics. In addition he outlines treatment goals and objectives for each character in cognitive, affective, and behavioral areas. Johnson manages to bring psychoanalytic terminology down to earth and put it in existential terms (e.g. The Hated Child, The Used Child, etc).

Johnson's work constitute his attempt at constructing a paradigm shift in the sense that he proposes a cohesive integration of psychoanalytic developmental models as a move away from classical drive psychoanalysis. It is at once aesthetically stimulating and immanently useful. It is hard to agree with everything he says, but a paradigm shift is a very ambitious project.

I think it is pretty challenging reading--for the professional or the very dedicated. However, those who stick with it are likely to learn something about themselves (he speaks of "styles" rather than just extreme "personality disorders"), learn valuable lessons about parenting, and understand their relationships better. I agree with a previous reviewer's comment that it is a treasure.