You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The Psychotic Personality is easy to read. There are ample summaries, detailed lists of symptoms and dynamic patterns, an adequate (although at times oversimplified) review of the pertinent literature, and ample clinical material. The authors admit their difficulties with metapsychology and attempt easy explanations of complex phenomena. The result is a book that is of interest to beginning students, although of limited use for most readers versed in Freudian theory.
The authors define the psychotic personality disorder (PPD), as follows:
This condition is characterized by the depth, level, or age of the fixation or regression, in which the frustration or trauma and the consequent fight-flight reaction to it cause:
An intensity of hostility …
Serious withdrawal from human relations …
Heightened narcissism …
Warping of the sense of reality …
The psychotic elements diffuse throughout the personality of ego. … (p. x)
The clinical material appears much better summarized by Kernberg's definition of “borderline” than by Saul's and Warner's definition of “psychotic personality disorder.” Kernberg's explanations have a range and subtlety eminently more useful to the serious psychoanalytic investigator.