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Presenting an integrated personality theory, this book shows how basic existential and developmental issues underlie the severe pathology of personality disorders, the nagging symptoms of neurosis, and the more functional coping and adaptation of character styles. It details both an external description of these personalities along the continuum of psychic structure and the internal experience that makes human behaviour understandable and worthy of empathy.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
74 of 75 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a full-time counsellor, I have found this book to be tremendously useful. Johnson paints a succinct portrait of the characteristics of 7 basic personality types and these portraits have helped me to understand clients who might otherwise have remained baffling. He draws heavily on psychoanalrytic insight, but tempers this with modern reseach and other approaches to therapy - e.g. humanistic, TA, and Rogerian therapy. This is a book I am very glad to have on my shelf, and is one to which I refer again and again to work more effectively with my clients. The only reason I haven't given it 5 stars in my review is that I found the first three introductory chapters unnecessarily ponderous and jargon-loaded - the rest of the book is much more accessible and useful.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I completely agree with the review above. Only four stars because some parts of the book are a bit turgid and difficult to read. Overall though, the character models that Johnson describes are the ones I find most useful in understanding my clients - at an initial assessment and as the work progresses. His description of the origins of psychological wounding is clear and to the point. The subtlety of the model allows for the complex reality of our personalities.
And, of course, my first reading helped me to see aspects of my own character that I had not recognised before. So Johnson has been as important in my work on myself as in my psychotherapy practice.
Highly recommended
And, of course, my first reading helped me to see aspects of my own character that I had not recognised before. So Johnson has been as important in my work on myself as in my psychotherapy practice.
Highly recommended
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
13 reviews
80 of 81 people found the following review helpful
A Buried Treasure
2 May 2001
Format:Hardcover
Over a ten year period, Stephen M. Johnson wrote a series of extraordinarily useful and well organized books integrating theories of personality development and therapeutic objectives at neurotic and borderline functioning. In the introduction here he writes about his integrated theory: "It is not psychoanalytic, not object relations, not self-psychology or ego psychology. It is not behavioral or cognitive or affective. It is not characterological, developmental, interactive, phenomenological. It is not theoretical, empirical, experiential, intuitive, or deductive. It is all of this and more in a mix. It attempts to answer important questions with the information available. For each of us who are curious about such questions, this is what we must do."
Character Styles includes revised chapters from Characterological Transformation, Humanizing the Narcissistic Style and The Symbiotic Character, but the addition here of chapters on masochistic, hysterical and obsessive-compulsive characters makes the entire series a little masterpiece. Dr. Johnson's work seems to have grown most out of The Symbiotic Character since, as he writes, "the strategies found successful in liberating the symbiotic character can be of nearly universal significance." The first books in the series contain diagrams for energetic body work based on Reich and Lowen that are curiously missing here.
The major character styles he addresses include The Hated Child: The Schizoid Experience, The Abandoned Child: The Symbiotic Withdrawal, The Owned Child: The Symbiotic Character, The Used Child: The Narcissistic Experience, The Defeated Child: Social Masochism and the Patterns of Self-Defeat, The Exploited Child: Hysterical Defenses and the Histrionic Personality and The Disciplined Child: The Obsessive-Compulsive Personality.
My copy of Character Styles is dogeared and contains scribbled notes that are a record of the development of my own understanding and thinking about personality over the last ten years. I owe that development and understanding and where it's taken my thought today much more than I've realized to Dr. Johnson's insightful, compassionate, well-referenced work.
62 of 63 people found the following review helpful
This non-psychologist couldn't put it down!
2 July 2000
Format:Hardcover
Once I started a chapter, I *had* to read it through no matter the hour. Despite the jargon, despite the too infrequent "for example"'s, he clearly describes a dozen friends, relatives and, of course, myself -- *anyone* whose early childhood is known to me. His uncanny grasp of my "inner life" experience astounded me and was worth the price right there. I particularly appreciate his using the same structure for each chapter, always winding up with that style's Therapeutic Objectives. Professionals should also appreciate his indicating what difficulties a therapist can encounter when treating a given style. This is one of the three most important and rewarding books in my forty years of reading.
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Paradigm Shift
12 Nov 2005
Format:Hardcover
This book was the only text used in my graduate Psychopathology class. Five years later I have gone back again and again for use in my practice. Johnson brilliantly integrates most of the psychodynamic schools of thought to construct a "characterological-developmental" model of motivation, personality development, and treatment of psychopathology. He delineates components of character in terms of etiology, symptoms, cognitive styles, defenses,pathogenic beliefs, self and object representations, and affective characteristics. In addition he outlines treatment goals and objectives for each character in cognitive, affective, and behavioral areas. Johnson manages to bring psychoanalytic terminology down to earth and put it in existential terms (e.g. The Hated Child, The Used Child, etc).
Johnson's work constitute his attempt at constructing a paradigm shift in the sense that he proposes a cohesive integration of psychoanalytic developmental models as a move away from classical drive psychoanalysis. It is at once aesthetically stimulating and immanently useful. It is hard to agree with everything he says, but a paradigm shift is a very ambitious project.
I think it is pretty challenging reading--for the professional or the very dedicated. However, those who stick with it are likely to learn something about themselves (he speaks of "styles" rather than just extreme "personality disorders"), learn valuable lessons about parenting, and understand their relationships better. I agree with a previous reviewer's comment that it is a treasure.
Johnson's work constitute his attempt at constructing a paradigm shift in the sense that he proposes a cohesive integration of psychoanalytic developmental models as a move away from classical drive psychoanalysis. It is at once aesthetically stimulating and immanently useful. It is hard to agree with everything he says, but a paradigm shift is a very ambitious project.
I think it is pretty challenging reading--for the professional or the very dedicated. However, those who stick with it are likely to learn something about themselves (he speaks of "styles" rather than just extreme "personality disorders"), learn valuable lessons about parenting, and understand their relationships better. I agree with a previous reviewer's comment that it is a treasure.
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