Personality-guided Therapy for Depression

In Personality-Guided Therapy for Depression , Neil R. Bockian describes a promising new approach to treating complicated depression, cases in which progress is painfully slow, elusive, or followed by relapse. The causes and experience of depression are influenced by personality style, or deeply rooted patterns of functioning in the world. Depression in a person with a dependent style, for example, differs markedly from that in someone with an antisocial personality. This volume demonstrates how, drawing insights from major theoretical orientations, psychotherapy can be tailored to address patients’ varying issues and communication styles. As treating personality disorders alleviates depression, and vice versa, this approach offers new hope for progress in both realms. Using Theodore Millon’s personality-guided psychology as framework, Dr. Bockian illuminates how specific personality types play into depression, and how taking personality into account enables psychologists to tailor their interventions to the patient and thus improve the prospects for long-term recovery. For each personality type, the author explores how prevalent depression is, what promotes and maintains it, how psychological, biological, and social factors contribute to it, and the role of medications and of therapist reactions to the patient. This groundbreaking book offers practitioners, researchers, and students a framework for understanding how personality factors increase vulnerability to depression or help buffer against it.