This volume discusses the origins and significance of primitive aggressions in the psychodynamic psychotherapy of patients with severe personality disorders. It presents an overview of the clinical manifestations of these developments and their prognostic significance and of effective psychotherapeutic techniques and their limitations. The important influence of boundary-setting, counter-transference analysis and tolerance are also described. Finally, a treatment approach that allows a systematic analysis of primitive transference reactions is presented.

Prof. Otto F. Kernberg is a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. He is an internationally recognized expert and is the author of numerous publications. An Austrian by birth, he now works at New York&Presbyterian Hospital.