Routledge Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders: A Motivational Systems Approach to Theory and Treatment (Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series)

Product Description Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders draws on major theorists and the very latest research to help formulate and introduce the Relational/Multi-Motivational Therapeutic Approach (REMOTA), a new model for treating such patients within a clinical psychoanalytic setting. Supported by her fellow contributors, Antonella Ivaldi provides an overview of existing theories and evidence for their effectiveness in practice, sets out her own theory in detail and provides rich clinical detail to demonstrate the advantages of the REMOTA model as applied in a clinical setting. The narratives in this book show how it is possible to integrate different contributions within a multidimensional aetiopathogenic treatment model, which considers the mind as a manifestation of the relationship between body and world. From a conceptual perspective, according to which consciousness emerges and develops in the interpersonal dimension, this book shows how it becomes possible to understand, in the therapeutic space, what stands in the way of sound personal functioning, and how to create the conditions for improving this. Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders will be highly useful in addressing the particular clusters of symptoms presented by patients, stimulating therapists of different backgrounds to explore the complexity of human nature. On reading this book, it will become clear that theories can truly become useful instruments, if approached with a critical mind and with humbleness, in order to venture into what we do not know and will never know completely: the relationship with the other, unique and irreplaceable. Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders provides an integrative and comparative new approach that will be indispensable for combining relational clinical knowing and motivational theories. It will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, especially those in training, clinicians of different backgrounds interested in comparative psychotherapy, as well as social workers and graduate and postgraduate students. Review "This is an important and creative contribution to the psychotherapy integration movement. It brings together two different yet overlapping perspectives in the treatment of some of the most difficult – and painfully suffering – patients we work with. It does not gloss over differences, yet creatively seeks commonalities and complementarities. Moreover, by adding group work to the work with individuals it still further extends the reach of the integration and contributes valuably to the effort to relieve human suffering."-Paul L. Wachtel, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor, Doctoral program in clinical psychology, City College of NY and CUNY Graduate Center "Relationship, theory, and clinical acuity all come together in the wonderful synthesis that is central to Antonella’s presentation and personhood. Using rich clinical examples, she demonstrates how her use of motivational theory enables her to navigate the challenges of treating difficult patients."-Joseph Lichtenberg, Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst. Founder and training analyst at the Washington Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Past President of the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology. Editor in chief of the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry "Antonella Ivaldi’s Relational/Multi-Motivational Therapeutic Approach (REMOTA) is an important text for clinicians seeking to impact severely traumatized individuals whose intersubjective possibilities have been severely compromised. In bridging two major multi-motivational systems theorists, Lichtenberg and Liotti, Ivaldi’s further extends the terrain to include data from multiple sources - infant and attachment research, neuroscience, trauma theory, the treatment of dissociative disorders, individual and group therapies. With beautifully illustrated clinical sensitivity, with vibrancy and fluidity, and with a dialogic