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The Therapeutic Relationship

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Complex Cases of Personality Disorders

Abstract

Patients with PD are excessively preoccupied with or excessively detached in their human relationships, and the relationships are unstable, conflictual, hostile, detached. These ways of relating also repeat themselves in the therapeutic relationship, suffusing the therapy with obstacles, more or less predictable disruptions, and possible iatrogenic risks.

This chapter describes the most frequent problems in the therapeutic relationship with patients with PDs and the various types of dysfunctional interpersonal cycles that might be activated in therapy. The authors also present other theories that explain the events that occur in the therapeutic relationship (i.e., interpersonal motivational systems) and ways to manage the problems that might lead to ruptures in the therapeutic alliance.

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Correspondence to Antonio Semerari .

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Semerari, A., Pellecchia, G., Carcione, A. (2021). The Therapeutic Relationship. In: Carcione, A., Nicolo, G., Semerari, A. (eds) Complex Cases of Personality Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70455-1_6

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