From Client Process to Therapeutic Relating: A Critique of the Process Model and Personality Adaptations

Abstract

The authors offer a critique of the process model as articulated by Kahler (1975a, 1975b, 1978, 1979, 1996) and the theory of personality adaptations as articulated by Kahler with Capers (1974), Kahler (1982), Ware (1983), and Joines & Stewart (2002). Specifically, they take issue with Joines and Stewart's assertion that narcissism cannot be considered to be a personality adaptation and argue for a consistent conceptualization of personality that encompasses narcissistic and borderline adaptations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Widdowson

Keith Tudor, M.A., M.Sc, CQSW, Dip.Psychotherapy, Certified Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), MAHPP, is registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy both as a transactional analysis psychotherapist and as a group psychotherapist and facilitator. He has an independent/private practice as a therapist, supervisor, and trainer in Sheffield, where is also a director of Temenos and an honorary lecturer in the School of Health, Liverpool John Moores University. He is the author of over 100 professional papers and author and/or editor of 10 books, the series editor of Advancing Theory in Therapy (published by Routledge), and sits on the editorial advisory boards of three international journals.

Mark Widdowson, M.Sc. (TA psychotherapy), Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), is a United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy and a European Association for Psychotherapy registered psychotherapist. In his private practice in Glasgow, he offers psychotherapy to individuals and couples and individual and group supervision.

He is director of training at the Counselling and Psychotherapy Training Institute in Edinburgh and associate director at The Berne Institute, Kegworth, U.K., and a senior lecturer at the Athens Synthesis Centre in Greece. He can be reached at 3 Crossview Place, Glasgow G69 6JN, United Kingdom; e-mail: mark. [email protected].