The fragmented personality : an integrative, dynamic, and personalized approach to personality disorder / Dragan M. Svrakic, MD, PhD, (Professor of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine; VA Medical Center, St. Louis, Missouri), and Mirjana Divac Jovanovic, PhD (Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Media and Communications, Department of Psychology, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia).

Includes bibliographic references (pages 311-326) and index.

What is personality? -- What is personality disorder? -- Dynamic nosology and clinical assessment of fragmented personality -- Psychotherapy of personality disorder -- Pharmacotherapy of personality disorder: mechanism-based and symptom-based approach.

While the ideals of mental health have always been stability and integrity, for the postmodern "fragmented self," these ideals are outdated and inflexible. In "The Fragmented Personality", Drs. Svrakic and Jovanovic present a new model for personality disorder that, they argue, better services psychiatrists caring for patients in post-modern society. This new approach provides diagnostic flexibility and a dynamic nosology of mental disorders that "allows" the individual to move within a coordinate system. This yields a personalized diagnosis that is contextual, dimensional, and time-specific, as well as yielding information about the current position of the individual in relation to the important components of personality functioning. To complement this conceptual model, the text provides practical guidelines for the diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and treatment in the management of personality disorder.