Working with Traits: Psychotherapy of Personality Disorders

In his latest work, Dr. Joel Paris offers a practical guide to working with a particularly difficult patient population―the personality-disordered. Drawing upon his years of experience as both clinician and researcher, Paris advances the compelling idea that it is not pathogenic childhood experience that gives rise to personality disorders but maladaptive 'amplification' of personality traits. He goes on to advocate a fairly aggressive therapeutic approach that ingeniously combines psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral principles. Paris then presents a number of down-to-earth clinical vignettes that satisfyingly demonstrate the translation of his theory into actual practice. With this carefully crafted, incisively written book, Paris makes an original contribution to the field of working with personality-challenged patients. (Martha Stark, M.D., Boston Psychoanalytic Institute)

A master clinician shares his wisdom on how best to treat some of our most difficult patients. (Allen Frances, MD, DSM-IV Task Force; author of author of Saving Normal; professor emeritus, Duke University School of Medicine)

Joel Paris, M.D., is professor of psychiatry at McGill University.