Fatal Flaws: Navigating Destructive Relationships With People With Disorders of Personality and Character by Stuart C. Yudofsky

From the Publisher

Featuring case vignettes from nearly 30 years of Dr. Yudofskys clinical practice and incorporating the knowledge of gifted clinicians, educators, and research scientists with whom he has collaborated throughout that time, Fatal Flaws: Navigating Destructive Relationships With People With Disorders of Personality and Character uniquely captures the rapidly increasing body of clinical and research information about people with severe and persistent personality and character disorders.

Within these pages, the author brings to life the psychopathologies of personality and character disorders through vivid vignettes based on composites of his many patients and their most important relationshipswhile meticulously changing the identifying facts and relevant details to protect confidentiality.

Covering the clinical course, treatment, genetics, biology, psychology, and destructive consequences of hysterical (histrionic), narcissistic, antisocial, paranoid, obsessive-compulsive, addictive, borderline, and schizotypal personality disorders, Fatal Flaws stands out in the literature for these powerful reasons:

• It is written for an unusually broad audience, from mental health students and trainees of all disciplines, to highly experienced clinicians, to patients who suffer from or are in destructive relationships with people with personality disorders.
• It is a hybridpart psychiatric textbook for clinicians and part self-help manual for patients and clients with personality and character disorders.
• It is designed to supplement treatment by providing patients with practical, evidence-based information about personality disorders and character flaws.
• It isparticularly valuable to patients who are in psychotherapy, in part, because they are entangled in destructive relationships with people with disorders of personality and/or character.
• It is written in the first person, with the author directly communicating with a patient who either has a personality or character disorder or is in an important relationship with a person who has such a disorder.
• It is useful for people who are uncertain whether they or their loved ones have personality or character disorders, and who want to know more about these conditions and their treatments before making a decision about securing the help of a mental health professional.

Fatal Flaws: Navigating Destructive Relationships With People With Disorders of Personality and Character is a compelling volume that provides the essential information and a realistic sense of the clinical experience required to inform, orient, and support novice mental health professionals and seasoned practitioners alike as they face the ongoing challenges of treating patients or clients with personality or character disorders. It should also prove to be an invaluable resource for those who wish practical and effective help in understanding and changing their destructive relationships with people who have severe and persistent disorders of personality and/or character.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Patricia E. Murphy, PhD (Rush University Medical Center)
Description:Using 30 years of experience as a successful therapist in the psychoanalytic tradition, the author provides rich information about personality disorders through cases that illustrate symptoms and treatment.
Purpose:The book is hard to put down, attesting to the author's achievement of his goal of providing information about persons with these disorders in a clear and interesting way.
Audience:The style of the book lends itself well to the targeted audience of those who are beginning or are in training to provide therapy for persons with personality disorders as well as for patients themselves or their families who want a better understanding of these "flaws."
Features:Each chapter on a specific disorder provides both biological and psychodynamic explanations of the origin of problems of a fictitious patient. Plenty of information depicts how the person interacts at work, with a spouse, and with children. Although the title "Fatal Flaws" sounds a bit pessimistic, the author wants to highlight the fact that if a person is unwilling to address symptoms in treatment, there are serious limitations to relationships. The material includes ways for the reader to recognize these limits and to take important self-protective steps.
Assessment:The experience and expertise of the author makes this a worthwhile bookz' for persons who are in a setting that calls for or allows psychodynamic treatment. It could also be instructional for those who use other methods in therapy. A value of the book is its inclusion of what iscurrently known about biology and genetics related to the disorders addressed. The author's inclusion of research does not address information about outcome-based studies to support his contention of the efficacy of his methods. His claim that only a therapist with no affiliation with organized religion can effectively treat spiritual issues of patients might also be checked against research on the topic. The reader will enjoy time spent with this book.

Rating

3 Stars from Doody

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents