Personality-guided Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (Personality-Guided Therapy Series)

Part of the Personality-Guided Psychology series (Ted Millon, series editor), Personality-Guided Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy integrates cognitive-behavioral approaches with Millon's personologic model to yield an exciting new psychotherapeutic approach. Paul R. Rasmussen describes how, in personality-guided cognitive-behavior therapy, a patient's clinical condition is seen as stemming not just from distorted thinking or behavioral excesses and deficits, but also from personality attributes and situational demands. The cognitive, behavioral, and affective stew that composes personality is recognized as a person's unique means of meeting existential challenges; in some circumstances, leading to pleasant, harmonious outcomes, and in others, less pleasant and often painful outcomes. Individual chapters examine each personality type, including its characteristics, the evolutionary foundation of the personality style, and the immediate adaptive value of the emotional reactions defining it, the pathological process, and the clinical conditions that one is vulnerable to. Treatment strategies are outlined, and the volume is amply illustrated with case examples. "The current volume emphasizes the adaptive value or purpose of the emotional experiences defining the clinical conditions. Thus, the clinical condition, rather than being the problem, is the logical outcome of the individual's personality attributes given situational demands. The specific goal of this volume is to present the value of a theoretical model that emphasizes clinical conditions in relation to their evolutionary adaptiveness as reflected in clients' personalities. This model will be helpful for students learning to conceptualize clinical cases and to practitioners devising treatment strategies. The model should (a) enhance practitioners' understanding of clients and the contributions of clients to their own clinical conditions, (b) improve selection of appropriate interventions, and (c) optimize therapeutic benefit in minimal treatment time." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)