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Abstract

The application of object-relations theory to the psychotherapy of severe personality disorders owes much to the writings of Otto Kernberg. According to Kernberg, object-relations theory facilitates analysis of the psychotherapeutic process and the clarification of personality pathology. It is a concept that integrates theories of psychic process in the individual, group process and the organization of the clinical setting, and has found general support among Dutch (group) psychotherapists treating patients with borderline and psychotic disorders. However, the scope of object-relations theory is seldom addressed. When object-relations theory is separated from clinical psychiatry it can be overvalued as a universal explanatory model.

Keywords

clinical psychiatry group psychotherapy object-relations psychosis

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Kernberg's Object-Relations Theory and the Group Psychotherapy of Psychosis

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