Integrative Perspectives on the Personality Disorders

Abstract

Hegel used a concept many years ago when he spoke of dialectical processes of analysis (thesis, antithesis), and synthesis; what I want to do in this chapter is a variant of that dialectic process. It appears to me that we, in our subject areas of personality and psychopathology, have invested a great deal of our time in the process of analysis. But not in that of synthesis. We have segmented our subject into many diverse parts, and each of these parts has been investigated in depth, and with great sensitivity and critical intelligence. But it appears to me that we are long overdue in addressing synthesis, of putting back together that which we have partitioned these past decades. There are several general themes that reflect efforts toward integration or synthesis, and I will address each in turn. Let me summarize a few briefly.