The book draws upon the exciting and illuminating understanding of trauma and dissociation that has developed within the last decade and shows how this can transform our view of many severe personality disorders. MPD is presented as a disorder based upon trauma and pretence - a pretence which structures the personality.

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Product Description

The book draws upon the exciting and illuminating understanding of trauma and dissociation that has developed within the last decade and shows how this can transform our view of many severe personality disorders. MPD is presented as a disorder based upon trauma and pretence - a pretence which structures the personality. The author explores the implications of working with personalities structured around trauma and pretence. The many complex and bewildering aspects of the therapeutic process are discussed.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #289863 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-17
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 228 pages

Synopsis
A large number of difficult patients who self-harm and hear voices, but who are not schizophrenic, are sometimes diagnosed as having a borderline personality disorder, but may often be better understood as suffering from trauma-based dissociative disorder, the most extreme form of which is Multiple Personality/Dissociative Identity Disorder. This is a book of clinical, theoretical and historical importance. Drawing on exciting recent developments in work on trauma and dissociation, Phil Mollon provides a clinically based conceptual model and account of the therapeutic process with patients whose personalities are structured around trauma and pretence. The complexities and hazards of the process are fully considered, as are the problems of Recovered Memory and Pseudomemory. The author illustrates the concepts and process by a detailed account of therapy with MPD/DID, and the specific problem of the perverse sexual abuse of children is dealt with in a chapter on the nature of deep perversion and evil. Trauma and dissociation present challenges to both psychoanalysis and mainstream psychiatry and clinical psychology.

Therapists, counsellors and nurses who work within the cognitive or analytic approaches to assessment and treatment will welcome this thoughtful and useful book.

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Customer Reviews

Clear, informative, empathic
Mollon writes with an admirable balance of professional objectivity and deep empathy with the internal worlds of this challenging client group. He offers a review of the issues involved with comprehenisve references to the thinking of others in the field, while adding his original viewpoint and a rich selection of material from client sessions. He is highly readable and the presentation with chapter introductions and summaries make this a particularly accessible text.