This acclaimed clinical guide and widely adopted text has filled a key need in the field since its original publication. Nancy McWilliams makes psychoanalytic personality theory and its implications for practice accessible to practitioners of all levels of experience. She explains major character types and demonstrates specific ways that understanding the patient's individual personality structure can influence the therapist's focus and style of intervention. Guidelines are provided for developing a systematic yet flexible diagnostic formulation and using it to inform treatment. Highly readable, the book features a wealth of illustrative clinical examples.

New to This Edition

• Reflects the ongoing development of the author's approach over nearly two decades.
• Incorporates important advances in attachment theory, neuroscience, and the study of trauma.
• Coverage of the contemporary relational movement in psychoanalysis.

Nancy McWilliams, PhD, ABPP, teaches in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and has a private practice in Flemington, New Jersey. She is a former president of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association and is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology. Dr. McWilliams’s books have been translated into 14 languages, and she has lectured widely both nationally and internationally. She is a recipient of honors including the Rosalee Weiss Award for contributions to practice from the Division of Independent Practitioners of the American Psychological Association; Honorary Membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association; and the Robert S. Wallerstein Visiting Scholar Lectureship in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at the University of California, San Francisco. A graduate of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, Dr. McWilliams is also affiliated with the Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of New Jersey and the National Training Program of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York City.

IntroductionI. Conceptual Issues1. Why Diagnose?2. Psychoanalytic Character Diagnosis3. Developmental Levels of Personality Organization4. Implications of Developmental Levels of Organization5. Primary Defensive Processes6. Secondary Defensive ProcessesII. Types of Character Organization7. Psychopathic (Antisocial) Personalities8. Narcissistic Personalities9. Schizoid Personalities10. Paranoid Personalities11. Depressive and Manic Personalities12. Masochistic (Self-Defeating) Personalities13. Obsessive and Compulsive Personalities14. Hysterical (Histrionic) Personalities15. Dissociative PsychologiesAppendix. Suggested Diagnostic Interview Format