Posted by fallsfall on September 25, 2004, at 22:18:26
In reply to Re: Useful psychology and psychotherapy books, posted by fallsfall on September 25, 2004, at 21:27:56
These are my favorite Borderline Personality Disorder books.
"Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder" by Marsha Linehan. This book made me feel understood (maybe for the first time). It also helped me understand why my therapist would do certain things, and what I could do to help friends of mine who also have BPD. It has great sections on suicide risks, and on acceptance vs. change.
"Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder" also by Marsha Linehan. This is the manual for DBT. It gives a briefer overview of Linehan's theory of BPD. It describes how the DBT skills are taught. And it has a wonderful section on emotions - pages of emotion words (for those of us whose emotional vocabulary is stunted...).
"Psychodynamic Psychotherapy of Borderline Patients" by Otto F. Kernberg, Michael A. Selzer, Harold W. Koenigsberg, Arthur C. Carr, Ann H. Appelbaum. Linehan's books give the CBT view of BPD, this book gives the Psychodynamic view. This book is fairly technical, but I found it very interesting to compare the views and therapies of two different therapeutic orientations for the same illness. It talks a lot about "objects" and "part objects" and "self objects", so it is not for the faint of heart. It was particularly helpful to me when I was switching from CBT to Psychodynamic therapy.
"A Primer of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for the Borderline Patient" By Frank E. Yeomans, John F. Clarkin and Otto F. Kernberg. This book is written in question and answer style (which makes it harder to read, but perhaps easier to look up particular things?). It is a helpful book if you are wondering how therapy works, what you are supposed to be doing in therapy, what your therapist is doing (note that is is about Psychodynamic Therapy - not CBT).
"Losing and Fusing : Borderline Transitional Object and Self Relations" by Roger A. Lewin, M.D. and Clarence Schulz, M.D. This book speaks to the see-saw that many of us ride, between being afraid of being abandoned (losing), and being afraid of being too close (fusing). As we are afraid of abandonment we cling, but that puts us too close, so we proclaim our independence by distancing ourselves, which brings us back to the fear of abandonment. It talks about "holding environments" in therapy. This book presented yet another view of BPD.
poster:fallsfall
thread:393889
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040925/msgs/395092.html