Now available in paperback. In this volume, different approaches to Psychodynamic/Object Relations approaches are examined. It covers the important issues in the field, with topics ranging from "psychodynamic psychotherapy with undergraduate and graduate students" to "a relational feminist psychodynamic approach to sexual desire" to "psychodynamic/object relations group therapy with shizophrenic patients."

This is the first comprehensive reference to integrate and cover the most widely-used psychotherapy approaches. Each of the four volumes covers theoretical underpinnings of the therapeutic modality for the major populations (children, adults, couples, and families). Each volume addresses the major psychological and emotional disturbances that the psychotherapy model is most effective in treating. (Midwest).

Offering a sophisticated introduction to a contemporary psychodynamic model of the mind and treatment, this book provides an approach to understanding and treating higher level personality pathology. It describes a specific form of treatment called "dynamic psychotherapy for higher level personality pathology" (DPHP), which was designed specifically to treat the rigidity that characterizes that condition. Based on psychodynamic object relations theory, DPHP is an outgrowth of transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) and is part of an integrated approach to psychodynamic treatment of personality pathology across the spectrum of severity -- from higher level personality pathology, described in this volume, to severe personality pathology, described in a companion volume, Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality: Focusing on Object Relations. Together, they provide a comprehensive description of an object relations theory-based approach to treatment of personality disorders, embedded in an integrated model of personality. As a guide to treatment, Handbook of Dynamic Psychotherapy for Higher Level Personality Pathology provides a clear, specific, and comprehensive description of how to practice DPHP from beginning to end, presented in jargon-free exposition using extensive clinical illustrations. The authors offer a comprehensive description of psychodynamic consultation that includes sharing the diagnostic impression, establishing treatment goals, discussing treatment options, obtaining informed consent, and establishing treatment frame. Throughout, the book emphasizes fundamental clinical principles that enable the clinician to think through clinical decisions moment-to-moment and also to develop an overall sense of the trajectory and goals of the treatment. Among the book's benefits: Takes a diagnosis-driven approach, presenting a clear model of both the psychopathology and its treatment; Explains underlying theory and basic elements of DPHP for those first learning dynamic therapy; Offers an integrated, innovative synthesis of contemporary psychodynamic approaches to personality pathology and psychodynamic psychotherapy; Describes goals, strategies, tactics, and techniques of the treatment to demonstrate its flexibility over a relatively long course of treatment; Provides sophisticated discussion of integrating dynamic psychotherapy with medication management and other forms of treatment. DPHP offers a broad range of patients the opportunity to modify maladaptive personality functioning in ways that can permanently enhance their quality of life. Handbook of Dynamic Psychotherapy for Higher Level Personality Pathology provides experienced clinicians with a hands-on approach to that method, and is also useful as a primary textbook in courses focusing on the technique of dynamic psychotherapy or in courses on psychodynamics.

Aimed at beginning therapists and those new to object relations, this concise work introduces the reader to the practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy from an object relations (O-R) perspective in a dynamic and easy-to-follow way. One of the four main schools of psychodynamic psychotherapy, O-R is regarded as particularly challenging, both conceptually and practically. The book presents object relations in a clear and concise manner that makes it especially applicable for regular use in the clinical setting. Moreover, the author writes in a narrative style similar to actual psychotherapy supervision; dialogues between a therapist and a fictitious patient appear throughout the book to illustrate common clinical situations. Designed to complement actual training in psychotherapy, the book suggests ways in which the therapist can incorporate object relations tools with other forms of therapy, regardless of the clinical setting. Ideal for students, trainees, and clinicians in psychiatry, psychology, social work, family medicine, and psychiatric nursing, The Little Psychotherapy Book will prove invaluable for any reader seeking a helpful and succinct introduction to object relations in psychotherapy.

Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory provides a masterful overview of the central issue concerning psychoanalysts today: finding a way to deal in theoretical terms with the importance of the patient's relationships with other people. Just as disturbed and distorted relationships lie at the core of the patient's distress, so too does the relation between analyst and patient play a key role in the analytic process. All psychoanalytic theories recognize the clinical centrality of “object relations,” but much else about the concept is in dispute. In their ground-breaking exercise in comparative psychoanalysis, the authors offer a new way to understand the dramatic and confusing proliferation of approaches to object relations. The result is major clarification of the history of psychoanalysis and a reliable guide to the fundamental issues that unite and divide the field. Greenberg and Mitchell, both psychoanalysts in private practice in New York, locate much of the variation in the concept of object relations between two deeply divergent models of psychoanalysis: Freud's model, in which relations with others are determined by the individual's need to satisfy primary instinctual drives, and an alternative model, in which relationships are taken as primary. The authors then diagnose the history of disagreement about object relations as a product of competition between these disparate paradigms. Within this framework, Sullivan's interpersonal psychiatry and the British tradition of object relations theory, led by Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip, are shown to be united by their rejection of significant aspects of Freud's drive theory. In contrast, the American ego psychology of Hartmann, Jacobson, and Kernberg appears as an effort to enlarge the classical drive theory to accommodate information derived from the study of object relations. Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory offers a conceptual map of the most difficult terrain in psychoanalysis and a history of its most complex disputes. In exploring the counterpoint between different psychoanalytic schools and traditions, it provides a synthetic perspective that is a major contribution to the advance of psychoanalytic thought.

Now available in paperback. In this volume, different approaches to Psychodynamic/Object Relations approaches are examined. It covers the important issues in the field, with topics ranging from "psychodynamic psychotherapy with undergraduate and graduate students" to "a relational feminist psychodynamic approach to sexual desire" to "psychodynamic/object relations group therapy with shizophrenic patients."