Selfhood, Identity and Personality Styles

Selfhood, Identity and Personality Styles is an interdisciplinary study that describes a new perspective on psychopathology based on the search for the source of personal meaning and identity. The opening section develops a first–person approach to selfhood and personal identity, discussing relevant topics in personality and social psychology, developmental psychology, psychology of emotions and neuroscience. The second part presents five different personality styles distinguished on the basis of their emotional inclinations: Eating Disorder–prone, Obsessive–Compulsive prone, personalities prone to Hypochondria–Hysteria, Phobia–prone and Depression–prone. The classification based on affectivity makes it possible to illustrate the continuity between the study of personality and that of psychopathology. One distinctive feature of this extraordinary book is a discussion of recently published evidence that functional magnetic resonance imaging can show how brain activity may be related to personality styles.
Praise for Selfhood, Identity and Personality Styles:
“Arciero and Bondolfi show in fine detail how the sense of self emerges in first– and second–person experiences, forming a dynamic, emotive and narrative identity; they then brilliantly demonstrate how this self–identity gets distorted and disrupted in the pathologies that directly undermine this process. This is a landmark study that brings together materials from multiple disciplines. Their analysis provides a clear account of how our existential being–in–the–world is modulated by narrative practices. They show how the ongoing construction of personality delineated by the various emotional tendencies that are sedimented in the individual’s life comes to be reflected in personal narrative. Arciero and Bondolfi continuously make insightful connections between research in development al psychology, neuroscience, and emotion studies and then carry these basic insights into the realm of psychiatry. The psychiatric analyses offered here are thus enriched by clinical vignettes and enlightened by the integration of philosophical (especially phenomenological and hermeneutical), psychological, neuroscientific, and literary dimensions”.
Shaun Gallagher, Professorof Philosophy, University of Central Florida
“Arciero and Bondolfi have written a timely, thought–provoking and challenging book, providing the reader with a refreshingly new account of Self–identity and its disorders. A cogent and novel contribution to psychiatric thought that wonderfully integrates philosophy, psychopathology and contemporary neuroscience. This book will push psychiatry in new directions. A must read!.”
Vittorio Gallese, Professor of Human Physiology, University of Parma ,Italy
“Selfhood, Identity, and Personality Styles is a highly ambitious work of theoretical synthesis: neuroscience, phenomenology, and social constructionism are joined together with the study of both literature and psychopathology. Arciero and Bondolfi offer sophisticated and intriguing discussions not only of mirror neurons and developmental psychology, but also of ideas from Aristotle, Kant, and Heidegger, of characters from Dostoevsky, Kleist, and Pessoa, and of patients from clinical practice. A ground–breaking, first attempt to show the relevance of the interdisciplinary study of basic self–experience for our understanding of character styles and personality disorders.”
Louis A. Sass, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Rutgers University


Spis treści:
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Subjectivity and Ipseity
From Kant to cybernetics
The sense of Self and the variety of experience
Non–linear systems and the constructi on of the SelfNon–linear SystemsConstruction of the Self
The Organization of living systems and Constructivism of the Self.The Organization of living systemsConstructivism of the Self
Robert’s Self from a systemic perspective
The continuity of the sense of Self
The return of the world and the question who (Die Werfrage)Returning to the worldThe question who (Die Werfrage)
Finding itself in things and with others
Reflection
Meaning
Chapter 2
Ipseity and Language
Traces of the other
Shared meaning
Finding oneself in the world: suggestions from phenomenology
Body–to–body
The significativity of expressions and objects
Referential communication
Oneself in the mirror and in the refraction of language
Recognition of Self in the mirror and in language
Affective engagements
Acting and speaking
Chapter 3
Personal Identity
Speaking of the past
Stories of the future
The sense of Self in the Age of reason
The modes of identity
Inclinations
Situatedness
The body, pain, and others
Chapter 4
Emotioning
Embodied emotions and judgments of the body
E–moting
E–moting with others
Emotional inclinations
Constructionist Situatedness
The impact of technology
Technological tuning
Mediated affective engagement
PART II
Chapter 5
The “Eating Disorder–prone” Style of Personality
Co–perceiving the Self and Other
DisordersAnorexia nervosaBulimia NervosaBinge Eating Disorder.Disorders connected to male body shape.Behavioural addictions (compulsive buying, pathological gambling, kleptomania, Internet addiction, impulsive–compulsive sexual behaviour, pyromania).
Chapter 6
The Obsessive–Compulsive–Prone Style of PersonalityMichael KohlhaasMr P rokharchin.
Disorders
Thematic personality disorders
Scrupulousness
Hoarding
Logical complacency
OCD Disorders
Case vignettes:Uncertainty about One’s Own Thoughts
Uncertainty about One’s Actions and their Consequences
Uncertainty of the Sense of Self
Chapter 7
Personalities Prone to Hypochondria–Hysteria
“The Loser”
Disorders
Hysteria.
Case Vignette
The Neuroscientific perspective
Case Vignette
The neural substratum
Hypochondria
Case Vignette
Chapter 8
The Phobia–Prone Style of Personality
Interoceptive awareness and emotional experience
Zuccarello distinguished melodist
Case vignette
Disorders
The distortion of personal stability
The fear of fear
What is the origin of distorted beliefs?
Agoraphobia
Case vignettes:Specific phobia?
Spontaneous panic?
Chapter 9
The Depression–Prone Style of Personality
The margins of the problem
Enduring dispositions
The Depressive–Prone Style of Personality
Disorders
Case vignette
Is depression an adaptation?
Message in a bottle
References


Nota biograficzna:
Giampiero Arciero is  Director of  the Institute of Constructivist Psychology and Psychotherapy of Rome (IPRA) and works as a Consultant at the Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Geneva. He also collaborates with the Psychiatric Neuroscience Group, University of Bari, Italy.
His publications  include Experience,Explanation, and the Quest for Coherence (2000) in Neimeyer A.R., Raskin D.J. (Eds), Constructions of Disorder. Identity, Personality  and Emotional Regulation (2004) in Freeman, A., Mahoney, M. J., & DeVito, P. (Eds.). Cognition and psychotherapy (2nd ed.). He is the author of Studi e dialoghi sull’identità personale (2002),Estudios y Dialogos sobre la identidad personal (2 e dition)(2005),Sulle Tracce di Se’(2006) Tras las huellas de sí mismo (2009).
Guido Bondolfi is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and a mindfulness instructor (MBCT and MBSR). He is “Chargé de Cours” at the Medical School of the University of Geneva (Switzerland) where he teaches Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. As head of a “Secteur” and of a specialized programme for depressive disorders at the Department of Psychiatry of the Geneva University Hospitals, Guido Bondolfi’s research interests include cognitive psychotherapy, mood disorders and pathological gambling.
He is the author of more than fifty peer reviewed publications and of a book: “Traitement intégré de la dépression : de la résistance à la prévention de la rechute” (2004).

Okładka tylna:
Selfhood, Identity and Personality Styles is an interdisciplinary study that describes a new perspective on psychopathology based on the search for the source of personal meaning and identity. The opening section develops a first–person approach to selfhood and personal identity, discussing relevant topics in personality and social psychology, developmental psychology, psychology of emotions and neuroscience. The second part presents five different personality styles distinguished on the basis of their emotional inclinations: Eating Disorder–prone, Obsessive–Compulsive prone, personalities prone to Hypochondria–Hysteria, Phobia–prone and Depression–prone. The classification based on affectivity makes it possible to illustrate the continuity between the study of personality and that of psychopathology. One distinctive feature of this extraordinary book is a discussion of recently published evidence that functional magnetic resonance imaging can show how brain activity may be related to personality styles.
Prais e for Selfhood, Identity and Personality Styles:
“Arciero and Bondolfi show in fine detail how the sense of self emerges in first– and second–person experiences, forming a dynamic, emotive and narrative identity; they then brilliantly demonstrate how this self–identity gets distorted and disrupted in the pathologies that directly undermine this process. This is a landmark study that brings together materials from multiple disciplines. Their analysis provides a clear account of how our existential being–in–the–world is modulated by narrative practices. They show how the ongoing construction of personality delineated by the various emotional tendencies that are sedimented in the individual’s life comes to be reflected in personal narrative. Arciero and Bondolfi continuously make insightful connections between research in developmental psychology, neuroscience, and emotion studies and then carry these basic insights into the realm of psychiatry. The psychiatric analyses offered here are thus enriched by clinical vignettes and enlightened by the integration of philosophical (especially phenomenological and hermeneutical), psychological, neuroscientific, and literary dimensions”.
Shaun Gallagher, Professorof Philosophy, University of Central Florida
“Arciero and Bondolfi have written a timely, thought–provoking and challenging book, providing the reader with a refreshingly new account of Self–identity and its disorders. A cogent and novel contribution to psychiatric thought that wonderfully integrates philosophy, psychopathology and contemporary neuroscience. This book will push psychiatry in new directions. A must read!.”
Vittorio Gallese, Professor of Human Physiology, University of Parma ,Italy
“Selfhood, Identity, and Personality Styles is a highly ambitious work of theoretical synthesis: neur oscience, phenomenology, and social constructionism are joined together with the study of both literature and psychopathology. Arciero and Bondolfi offer sophisticated and intriguing discussions not only of mirror neurons and developmental psychology, but also of ideas from Aristotle, Kant, and Heidegger, of characters from Dostoevsky, Kleist, and Pessoa, and of patients from clinical practice. A ground–breaking, first attempt to show the relevance of the interdisciplinary study of basic self–experience for our understanding of character styles and personality disorders.”
Louis A. Sass, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Rutgers University