Activity

Situation: Patient arrives late; persists with dramatic storytelling; breaks into sobs when therapist redirects to agenda setting.

Emotion: Frustrated / Disappointed / Uncertain / Embarrassed

Automatic thought(s): This patient will never get it! / We are making no progress using cognitive the…

1. The patient believes therapy is a passive or magical process. As part of the clinical picture, some Axis II patients see both problems and solutions as external to themselves. They may appear to be highly motivated, but their motivation is to simply absorb some curative effect from being around…

As defined by the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), a personality disorder is “an enduring pattern of inner ex- perience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s cult…

People with obsessive–compulsive personality, in marked contrast to histrionics, “miss the forest for the trees.” These persons focus so much on details that they miss the overall pattern; for example, a person with this disorder may decide on the basis of a few flaws in another person’s performanc…

The key word for narcissistic personality disorder is “self-aggrandizement.”

Self-view: The narcissistic personalities view themselves as special and unique—almost as princes or princesses. They believe that they have a special status that places them above ordinary people. They consider themsel…