Paperback: ISBN 10: 0765702983 ISBN 13: 978-0765702982
This work offers a contemporary object relations perspective on working with a wide range of psychological difficulties, from the neurotic to the psychotic, including addictions and personality disorders. The first chapter presents a concise overview of recent developments in object relations theory. Subsequent chapters use detailed clinical examples to examine each psychological difficulty and the appropriate therapeutic approach. The impact of early trauma on personality and psychotherapy is also extensively discussed.
Review
Once again Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld has written an illuminating and lucid book that applies the theories of the British School of Object Relations to treatment of patients with severe psychopathology. He is masterful in his ability to capture the turbulent inner world of patients and to illustrate the ways in which therapists provide containment in the treatment process. Anyone committed to the intensive psychotherapeutic process will find this book's penetrating case examples compelling and instructive. (Eda G. Goldstein, DSW)
Seinfeld starts with a review of object relations concepts, chiefly from the British School. After setting the stage, he then applies these concepts to a series of primitive mental states, including psychotic, schizoid, drug-addicted, depressed, and borderline conditions. Where Seinfeld truly deserves praise is that he does not leave us wandering in abstractions. He includes detailed case studies in most chapters; these include fairly extensive transcripts of sessions. Through these, he shows how certain object relations concepts apply to actual clinical experience. I always appreciate this sort of translation; it brings theory to life and excites me to produce a more informed understanding of my own patients. (Vance R. Sherwood Ph.D)
Seinfeld's book shows that the war between 'schools' of object relations theory is over and that we are in a new age of psychoanalysis. He makes use of the positive contributions of Fairbain, Bion, Winnicott, Klein, Sutherland, and recent writers like Grotstein, the Scharffs, Adler, and Rosenberg, to knit his own powerfully sensitive clinical approach to a wide spectrum of cases relevant for today's practice. (Michael Eigen, PhD, author of Flames from the Unconscious: Trauma, Madness and Faith)
From the Back Cover
Containing Rage, Terror, and Despair presents Jeffrey Seinfeld's object relations approach to treating various common and debilitating mental disorders. Clinicians are often perplexed and discouraged at seeing their patients suffer even more intensely as they face the defenses, conflicts, and deficits that have impeded their growth and development. Often at the center of this increased suffering is an intense fear of giving up internalized bad objects. When there has been a lack of good enough supportive relationships throughout life, this letting go of bad objects threatens the patient with an unraveling of his or her core psychic structure.The process of internalizing the therapist as a good object is a long and arduous one, during which these patients test to the limit the therapist's capacity for survival and concern. Dr. Seinfeld describes the specific internalized object relations configurations of schizophrenic, schizoid, borderline, depressive, substance abusing, and traumatized patients. Using abundant clinical material, he offers individualized interventions that address each disorder, describing how the therapist can contain the patient's rage, despair, and terror that are evoked as the patient begins to face and release his or her dreaded inner demons.
About the Author
Jeffrey Seinfeld, Ph.D., is professor at New York University School of Social Work and private consultant to the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services.
