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Working with personality disorders

(1-14-16)

  • Impact of Axis II disorders on outpatient psychotherapy and counseling
    • comorbidity increases challange of clinical work
    • many clients seen chronically in outpatient settings have personality disorders comorbid with their presenting Axis I complaints
    • therapists are often more pessimistic regarding outcomes with clients who have Axis II conditions
  • Particular challanges in working with clients who show personality disorder diagnoses
    • identification/naming/recognition of the problems
    • ego-syntonic nature of the problems
    • ambivalence in therapists regarding goals
  • My thoughts:
    • What does your client want?
    • What do your want?
  • What helps:
    • 1. a dialectical stance
    • 2. clear conceptualization and communication of therapeutic plan
    • 3. particular attention to establishing and maintaining therapeutic relationship
    • 4. a joint emphasis of evaluation of outcome
    • 5. a skill training/hypothesis testing model
    • 5. a psychodynamic model/understanding and insight
    • 6. patience (with them, with yourself)
    • 7. therapeutic breaks/holidays
    • 8. supervision/consultation
      • countertransference/overinvolvement in client’s life/boundary problems

References

Kaner, A. & Prelinger, E. (2005). The Craft of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. NY: Jason Aronson.

MsWilliams, N. (2004). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy. NY: Guilford Press.

Panksepp, J. & Biven L. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions. NY: Norton.

Rafaeli, E., Bernstein, D.P., & Young, J. (2011). Schema Therapy. NY: Routledge

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