Description
Book SynopsisIn this empirical yet deeply humanistic work, Golan Shahar investigates the dynamic relationship between personality and social factors in complex depression, identifying avenues for research and offering hope for sufferers and treatment providers. Shahar synthesizes research and clinical wisdom to enhance our understanding of complex depression, a mental illness defined by its chronicity, heterogeneity, and serious consequences including suicide. He focuses on Melanie Klein’s object relations theory and depressive position, reconceptualizing both from a transtheoretical perspective, with an emphasis on four key factors: demeaning affect; affect regulation; maladaptive schemas and scripts; and a time axis consisting of past, current, and projected future experiences. Shahar also explores how individuals externalize self-critical feelings, in turn creating a malignant social environment and a vicious cycle of self-recrimination. To explain this toxic relationsh
Table of ContentsForeword
Thomas Joiner An Introduction to the Personality and Social Dynamics of Complex Depression
Acknowledgments
Part I. Depression and Personality Chapter 1. The Complications of Depression
Chapter 2. The Role of Personality in Complex Depression
Part II. Psychodynamics and Ecodynamics Chapter 3. Reformulating Klein’s Object Relations Theory and the Depressive Position
Chapter 4. Human Ecology and Development Within Social Contexts: The Theory of Ecodynamics
Part III. The Ecodynamics of Complex Depression Chapter 5. Applying the Reformulated Depressive Position and Ecodynamics to Complex Depression
Chapter 6. Suicidal Depression: A Case Study of Complex Depression’s Most Severe Consequence
Chapter 7. Practical Implications for Assessment: Evaluating Complex Depression Via the Reformulated Depressive Position and Ecodynamics
Chapter 8. Practical Implications for Psychotherapy: Specific Interventions for Treating Complex Depression
References
Index
About the Author
