Citation

Kernberg OF. J. Personal. Disord. 2001; 15(3): 195-208; discussion 209-215.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Guilford Publications)

DOI

10.1521/pedi.15.3.195.19203

PMID

11406992

Abstract

This article describes the clinical approach to patients with severe personality disorders who present suicidal intention and behavior, developed at the Personality Disorders Institute of the Department of Psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College and the Westchester Division of the New York Presbyterian Hospital. It describes the diagnostic evaluation of patients' suicidal potential, personality disorder, and the presence or absence of a spectrum of regressive illness. The analysis of the combined features in these three symptomatic domains determines alternative strategies of psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological interventions. Within these strategies, transference-focused psychotherapy is described as a specific psychodynamic psychotherapy geared to treat characterologically based suicidal and parasuicidal tendencies in the context of the treatment of the patient's personality disorder.

Language: en

Keywords

Depressive Disorder, Major; Diagnosis, Differential; Humans; Personality Disorders; Risk Factors; Severity of Illness Index; Suicide, Attempted