Russell Meares has a solid reputation in Australia, the UK and US

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.

Intimacy and Alienation puts forward the author's unique paradigm for psychotherapy and counselling based on the assumption that each patient has suffered a disruption of the 'self', and that the goal of the therapist is to identify and work with that disruption.

Using many clinical illustrations, and drawing on self psychology, attachment therapy and theories of trauma, Russell Meares looks at the nature of self and how it develops, before going on to explore the form and feeling of experience when self is disrupted in a traumatic way, and focusing on ways towards the restoration of the self.

Written in an accessible style from the author's singular perspective, Intimacy and Alienation will appeal to professionals in the fields of psychotherapy, counselling, social work and psychiatry, as well as to students and the lay reader.

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This book addresses one of the fundamental, understudied issues of borderline personality disorder (BPD): dissociation and a lack of sense of self. Exploring dissociation from developmental, neurobiological, and behavioral perspectives, Russell Meares presents an original theory of BPD, offering new insights into this debilitating disorder and hope for recovery.

BPD is not a new phenomenon, but much about it remains unclear and controversial. Meares s three-stage treatment emphasizes the failure of synthesis among the elements of psychic life, the need for both personal and social development, integration of unconscious traumatic memory, affect regulation, hallucinosis, stimulus entrapment, paranoid states, and ultimately, restoration of the self. Mental health professionals working with patients suffering from symptoms of BPD will find an invaluable theoretical grounding for treating the difficult and varied symptoms of BPD."

Russell Meares has a solid reputation in Australia, the UK and US

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.