Practical Management of Personality Disorder (Electronic book text)

This volume takes a multi-level approach to understanding and treating personality disorder, identifying core symptoms and problems that many patients share and providing a comprehensive framework for clinical intervention. Rather than presenting a particular model of therapy, W. John Livesley shows how a wide variety of empirically supported interventions can be used to manage specific components of an integrated treatment plan. Drawing on etiological knowledge as well as outcome research, the book identifies effective strategies for addressing key areas of the patient's psychosocial and biological functioning. The clinician learns how to conceptualize the phases of treatment and use the stages-of-change model as a guide for sequencing and selecting appropriate interventions. Pragmatic and flexible, the research-based strategies presented here are applicable in diverse settings, in therapies ranging from crisis intervention to long-term treatment.