Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Of Borderline Patients (Hardcover)

by Otto F. Kernberg (Author), Michael A. Selzer (Author), Harold W. Koenigsberg (Author), Arthur C. Carr (Author), Ann H. Applebaum (Author) "During the 1950s, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts began to describe a group of patients who could consciously experience primary process material but who lacked the capacity..." (more)
Key Phrases: paranoid regression, auxiliary therapist, primitive transferences, San Francisco (more...)

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Product Description
This long-awaited book is the first to present Otto Kernberg's successful model of psychodynamic psychotherapy with borderline patients. Using abundant clinical vignettes and transcripts, the authors take the reader through the treatment--from establishing contact to dealing with termination--always explaining the theory that underlies the technique. Bibliography and Index.

About the Author

Otto F. Kernberg is associate chairman and medical director, The New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division; Drs. Selzer, Koenigsberg, Carr, and Appelbaum are on the faculty there. Otto F. Kernberg is associate chairman and medical director, The New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division; Drs. Selzer, Koenigsberg, Carr, and Appelbaum are on the faculty there. Otto F. Kernberg is associate chairman and medical director, The New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division; Drs. Selzer, Koenigsberg, Carr, and Appelbaum are on the faculty there. Otto F. Kernberg is associate chairman and medical director, The New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division; Drs. Selzer, Koenigsberg, Carr, and Appelbaum are on the faculty there. Otto F. Kernberg is associate chairman and medical director, The New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division; Drs. Selzer, Koenigsberg, Carr, and Appelbaum are on the faculty there.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1 edition (August 21, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465066437
• ISBN-13: 978-0465066438
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #366,753 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard hitting, September 3, 2001

By	Susan G. Dunn "The EQ Coach" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Kernberg's treatment model reflects an approach to the therapy of borderline patients that is based upon ego psychology-object relations conceptualization, that is, a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy that relies on interpretatio of the transference. The aim of the treatment, he states, is to "enhance the patient's ability to experience self and others as coherent, integrated, realistically perceived individuals, and to reduce the need to use defenses that weaken ego structure by reducing the repertoire of available responses."

He covers all the bases, with clarity and authority -- the Principles of Treatment, the Phases of Treatment, and Common Complications. The book ranges from theoretical to very didactic -- there's a chapter called "Conducting a Session" that is very illuminating. Kernberg, who is an expert in the field, doesn't let you down in this instructive book on a notorously difficult subject. What strikes me most about his book, and about him, are his hard-hitting clarifications, confrontations and interpretations.

To one patient he says, "I am impressed by your telling me that you shared your new slides with the very person you have been suspecting of plagiarizing other researchers' work."

To another he says, "I think you have been trying to provoke me into an argument in order to protect yourself against the emergence of sexual fantasies about me. What do you think about this?"

To another, "Whipping prostitutes and acting tough with me have similar functions..."

One gets the idea that he is relentless in pursuit of therapeutic healing. You can read his book and learn, but the question is, can you do the actual therapy as he does.

I highly recommend this book for an understanding of the treatment of borderlines -- the challenges, the goals, the actualities of the treatment room, the countertransference pitfalls and opportunities, the intense, chaotic transferences, and the forms of resistance.