Across the lifespan we may experience moments of sublime intimacy, suffocating closeness, comfortable solitude, and intolerable distance or closeness. In Interpersonal Boundaries: Variations and Violations Salman Akhtar and the other contributors demonstrate how boundaries, by delineating and containing the self, secure one's conscious and unconscious experience of entity and of self-governance. Interpersonal Boundaries reveals the complexities of the self and its boundaries, while identifying some of the enigmatic questions about how the biological, psychological, and cultural aspects of the self interrelate. The contributors skillfully integrate a wide range of theory with a wealth of clinical material. Examples range from the dark side of boundary-violating therapists to an extraordinary presentation of harrowing analytic work with a severely traumatized man. Readers will find that this volume makes a significant contribution to the knowledge of boundaries of the self in psychotherapeutic theory and practice.

Personality disorder can be conceived as the result of a disruption on the development of self. This thoroughly updated edition of The Metaphor of Play examines how those who have suffered such disruption can be treated by understanding their sense of self and the fragility of their sense of existence.
Based on the Conversational Model, this book demonstrates that the play of a pre-school child, and a mental activity similar to it in the adult, is necessary to the growth of a healthy self. The three sections of the book - Development, Disruption and Amplification and Integration - introduce such concepts as the exceptional field, paradoxical restoration, reversal, value and fit, and coupling, amplification and representation.

This highly readable and lucid presentation of the role of play in the development of self will be of interest not only to therapists but also to those interested in the larger issues of mind and consciousness.

Personality disorder can be conceived as the result of a disruption on the development of self. This thoroughly updated edition of The Metaphor of Play examines how those who have suffered such disruption can be treated by understanding their sense of self and the fragility of their sense of existence. Based on the Conversational Model, this book demonstrates that the play of a pre-school child, and a mental activity similar to it in the adult, is necessary to the growth of a healthy self. The three sections of the book - Development, Disruption and Amplification and Integration - introduce such concepts as the exceptional field, paradoxical restoration, reversal, value and fit, and coupling, amplification and representation. This highly readable and lucid presentation of the role of play in the development of self will be of interest not only to therapists but also to those interested in the larger issues of mind and consciousness.