Primer of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for the Borderline Patient

Frank E. Yeomans, M.D., Ph.D., is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Co-Director of Training and Senior Supervisor at the Personality Disorders Institute at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Westchester Division. In addition to private practice in New York City and White Plains, NY, Dr. Yeomans teaches and supervises Transference-Focused Psychother-apy in Quebec, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany. John F. Clarkin, Ph.D., is a Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the Co-Director of the Personality Disorders Institute and the Director of Psychology at Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Clarkin is on the Research Faculty and is a Lecturer at Columbia University's Psychoanalytic Center. His research publications are on the phenomenology of personality disorders, especially borderline personality disorder. For the last twelve years, he has directed a large scale clinical study of the effect of psychodynamic psychotherapy with severely disturbed borderline personality disorder patients. Otto F. Kernberg, M.D., F.A.P.A., is Director of the Personality Disorders Institute at The New York Presbyterian Hospital, Westchester Division and Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Dr. Kernberg is Past President of the International Psychoanalytic Association and also Training and Supervising Analyst of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. From 1976 to 1995 he was Associate Chairman and Medical Director of The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division. He was elected Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1998, and received the 1999 Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.

A Primer of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for the Borderline Patient provides an excellent introduction and resource guide for object-relations therapy for these [borderline] patients. This is an excellent introductory and reference source forobject-relations therapy with borderline patients. It is user-friendly and practical in its discussions of theory, technique, and long-term considerations for ethical and therapeutic pitfalls. An abundance of resource and bibliographic references are provided to direct the reader to more in-depth discussions of the key topics. The text provides a road map for the budding therapist when encountering splitting, therapeutic boundaries, and threats to the treatment contract. Excellent examples are provided to illustrate the identification of negative object dyads and ways they are manifest in transference material..