The Mother and Her Child: Clinical Aspects of Attachment, Separation, and Loss, edited by Salman Akhtar, focuses upon the formation of an individual's self in the crucible of the early mother-child relationship. Bringing together contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts and child observational researchers, it elucidates the nuances of mothering, the child's tie to the mother, the mysteries of secure attachment, and the hazards of insecure attachment. These experts also discuss issue...

The pioneering contribution to infant psychology that gave us separation and individuation documents with standard-setting care the intrapsychic process of a child's emergence from symbiotic fusion with the mother toward affirmation of his own psychological birth. Available for the first time in paperback to a new generation of students and clinicians on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its original publication.

The essential feature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a picture of the trend to superiority, need for admiration, and lack of sensitivity to others. Individuals with narcissistic disorder have, for most of the time, a high self-regard. They routinely exaggerate their skills, often appearing arrogant. They think they're special, superior, have to be satisfied in every request.

Drawing on the pioneering work of Janet, Freud, Sullivan, and Fairbairn and making extensive use of recent literature, Elizabeth Howell develops a comprehensive model of the dissociative mind. Dissociation, for her, suffuses everyday life; it is a relationally structured survival strategy that arises out of the mind’s need to allow interaction with frightening but still urgently needed others. For therapists dissociated self-states are among the everyday fare of clinical work and gain expr...

This volume presents a fully integrated developmental approach that not only differentiates between varying etiologies of the narcissistic and borderline disorders but also provides a detailed guide to effective treatment.

The Dissociative Mind in Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Working With Trauma is an invaluable and cutting edge resource providing the current theory, practice, and research on trauma and dissociation within psychoanalysis. Elizabeth Howell and Sheldon Itzkowitz bring together experts in the field of dissociation and psychoanalysis, providing a comprehensive and forward-looking overview of the current thinking on trauma and dissociation.T...

Is the emotionally disturbed person a victim of forces beyond his awareness, over which he has no control? This is the belief on which neuropsychiatry, psychoanalysis, and behavior therapy are all based. But what if this premise is wrong? What if a person’s psychological difficulties stem from his own erroneous assumptions and faulty concepts of himself and the world? Such a person can be helped to recognize and correct distortions in thinking that cause his emotional disturbance.N...

What kinds of questions do experienced therapists ask themselves when facing a new client? How can clinical expertise be taught? From the author of the landmark Psychoanalytic Diagnosis, this book takes clinicians step-by- step through developing an understanding of each client's unique psychology and using this information to guide and inform treatment decisions. McWilliams shows that while seasoned practitioners rely upon established diagnostic categories for re...

Histrionic Personality Disorder is characterized by shallow and labile affectivity, trend to exaggerate expression of emotions, suggestibility, egocentricity, self-indulgence and loss of consideration for others. These individuals may behave inappropriately seductive and show an excessive preoccupation with physical attractiveness. They are usually manipulative, vain and demanding.

A BestsellerAttachment Theory shows scientifically how our earliest relationships with our mothers influence our later relationships in life. This book offers an excellent introduction to the findings of attachment theory and the major schools of psychoanalytic thought."The book every student, colleague, and even rival theoretician has been waiting for. With characteristic wit, philosophical sophistication, scholarship, humanity, incisiveness, and ...

Building on the comprehensive theoretical model of dissociation elegantly developed in The Dissociative Mind, Elizabeth Howell makes another invaluable contribution to the clinical understanding of dissociative states with Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder. Howell, working within the realm of relational psychoanalysis, explicates a multifaceted approach to the treatment of this fascinating yet often misunderstood condition, which involves the parti...

Relational frame theory, or RFT, is the little-understood behavioral theory behind a recent development in modern psychology: the shift from the cognitive paradigm underpinning cognitive behavioral therapy to a new understanding of language and cognition. Learning RFT presents a basic yet comprehensive introduction to this fascinating theory, which forms the basis of acceptance and commitment therapy. The book also offers practical guidance for directly applying it in clin...