Skip to product information
1 of 1

Oxford University Press, USA

The Fragmented Personality: An Integrative, Dynamic, and Personalized Approach to Personality Disorder

The Fragmented Personality: An Integrative, Dynamic, and Personalized Approach to Personality Disorder

Regular price $72.00 USD
Regular price Sale price $72.00 USD
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Format
Quantity
The Fragmented Personality introduces a new model for diagnosing and caring for patients with personality disorder. This book reviews in detail the neuroscience of brain and mind development, including the neuroscience of psychoanalytic concepts, both for normal and disordered personalities.
In contrast to the current static classifications of personality pathology, the authors' approach yields a dynamic and personalized diagnosis within a 3D diagnostic space in which each individual is uniquely positioned. In this model, two intersecting dimensions, one vertical, representing the
person's qualitative level of mental functioning (the how of personality), and the other horizontal, representing his or her adaptive style (the what of personality) are cross matched in the unit of time. Such dynamic nosology is inherently sensitive to fluctuations in mental functioning over
time and context, and gives the clinician precise milestones for monitoring progress in therapy.

In this book, the authors analyze the impact of social transitions on adaptive tasks, personality and psychopathology. They argue that the conservative society, with strict socio-religious norms, favored the psychopathology of neuroses centered around guilt, including guilt for not fitting the
preapproved norms. With the postmodern liberalization of normative pressures, the adaptive task has changed from how to fit into what to choose among many accepted alternatives, creating uncertainty of identity. This uncertainty, together with the non-directive society, favors the
psychopathology of personality disorder, and indeed, the prevalence of personality disorder has increased in the postmodern period.

Drs. Svrakic and Divac-Jovanovic argue that fragmented personality, a deep and early fragmentation of the mind at its nonconscious core of internalized object relations, represents a common denominator shared by all clinical variants of personality disorder. They conceptualize personality disorder
as a homeostatic attempt by the fragmented early mind to heal itself by self-organizing into an unrealistic and fantasized but a more stable self-image, figuratively a better any than no organization strategy.

In this invaluable text, the authors provide detailed practical guidelines for the diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and treatment of individuals with personality disorder and answer practical questions that clinicians frequently ask about etiology, psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy of the
syndrome.


Author: Dragan M. Svrakic, Mirjana Divac Jovanovic
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 11/19/2018
Pages: 360
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780190884574

About the Author

Dragan M. Svrakic, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri

Mirjana Divac-Jovanovic, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia

View full details