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Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for Adolescents With Severe Personality Disorders offers clinicians a comprehensive, compassionate presentation of this specialized psychodynamic psychotherapy. Like the transference-focused psychotherapy model developed for borderline personality disorder (BPD) in adults, the version for adolescents is based on contemporary psychoanalytic object relations theory as developed by the leading thinker in the field, Otto Kernberg, one of the authors of this insightful manual. The book fills an acute need: Currently, there is relatively little research on promising treatments for adolescents with PDs, in part because clinicians hesitate to diagnose PD in patients so young (because of stigma and other factors), although it is evident that a constellation of symptoms can be observed in children and adolescents. However, these personality issues are unlikely to resolve without interventions developed explicitly to treat adolescents. In TFP-A, the psychotherapist provides patients with a safe space to examine emotions, relationships, and past trauma, with the focus on helping them gain better behavioral control; increase affect regulation; develop more intimate and gratifying relationships with family, peers, or close friends; and engage in a productive life aimed at realizing current and future goals. Noteworthy themes and features of the text include: • Emphasis on the therapist as \"third voice, \" acting as interpreter and mediator between the adolescent, the parental couple, and conventional society and its values, with the ultimate goal of fostering ego integration sufficient to allow the adolescent to proceed under his own agency.• Detailed coverage of the techniques of TFP-A, including creating a holding environment, assuming an active stance, engaging in the interpretive process, analyzing transference and countertransference, achieving technical neutrality, and ensuring interventions are developmentally informed.• Practical and accessible review of TFP-A \"tactics, \" including establishing the treatment frame, collaborating with parents, and other interventions that maintain the conditions necessary for working effectively with the adolescent and for protecting treatment integrity.• Thoughtful review of the attributes that make a clinician a good \"fit\" for transference-focused psychotherapy. For example, therapists must have their own lives \"together, \" because they will have to use countertransference reactions to identity and understand what is projected onto them.• A rich and useful repository of assessment scales and forms in the Appendices, as well as extended and illustrative patient interviews. Navigating adolescence is fraught under the best of circumstances, but patients with PDs are hampered in their quest for individuation. Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for Adolescents With Severe Personality Disorders fills a critical gap in the treatment literature and is an eminently useful guide for clinicians serving this vulnerable population.

This remarkable collection of papers is divided into three sections: clinical issues; psychoanalysis and the life cycle; and underlying theories of practice. The papers span the years 1951 to 2004, recording five decades of British psychoanalysis, through various angles. Pearl King’s outstanding contribution to British psychoanalysis has shaped the psychoanalytic community in this country as it is today, and the papers in this volume chart the progress of the author as a psychoanalyst, with the background of various important events in the psychoanalytic community. The papers in the clinical part include a unique, lengthy case study of the psychoanalysis of a four-year-old boy, and a follow-up of his life over five decades later. After reading the paper at the age of 54, the patient agreed to write his own version of his life, which is included in the book. The second part of the book, on psychoanalysis and the life cycle, includes renowned chapters on ageing. The author looks at the ageing psychoanalyst as well as the characteristics of analysis with older patients. The third part discusses the theories underlying Pearl King’s practice and puts forward her views on such concepts as alienation, transference, and the importance of time in psychoanalytic work with patients.

Borderline personality disorder is associated with deficits in personality functioning and mentalisation. In a randomised controlled trial 104 people with borderline personality disorder received either transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) or treatment by experienced community therapists. Among other outcome variables, mentalisation was assessed by means of the Reflective Functioning Scale (RF Scale). Findings revealed only significant improvements in reflective function in the TFP group within 1 year of treatment. The between-group effect was of medium size (d = 0.45). Improvements in reflective function were significantly correlated with improvements in personality organisation.

Countertransference towards suicidal patients may blur healthcare professionals’ clinical judgment and lead to suboptimal decision-making. We conducted a systematic review of the quantitative studies on this topic. Following PRISMA guidelines, various databases were searched for studies measuring countertransference in healthcare professionals treating suicidal patients. Two authors independently performed screening and the quality of included studies was formally assessed. Ten studies were identified (3/5/2 of low/intermediate/high quality, respectively). Cross-sectional studies showed evidence for specific and adverse countertransference (e.g., disinterest, anxiety, overwhelming, rejection, helplessness or distress) towards suicidal patients. Furthermore, countertransference was prospectively associated with suicidal behavior and ideation in studies that explored this issue, but the meaning of this association remains to be clarified. Healthcare professionals’ characteristics (e.g. professional background, gender, personality traits) influenced countertransference. Suicidal patients elicit adverse countertransference, which should be addressed in clinical practice and through dedicated training.

An exploration of the extensive intra-personal, interpersonal and group dynamic landscape of human experience pertinent to the understanding of the human shadow in the training of psychotherapists. Using phenomenological enquiry this book invites unique in-depth experiences, provides new insights, and addresses the complexities and diversities inherent in the emergence and containment of shadow experience in psychotherapy training. The book demonstrates a process of qualitative research and invites the reader to explore his or her own relationships to the love of others, through the exploration of all the things that love is not. It argues that without hate we cannot truly love. Interspersed throughout the book are suggestions for personal exploration and it is hoped that reading this book will both stimulate practitioners to a process of self-reflection and questioning, and also support practitioner researchers in their own journey to self-understanding.