This outstanding book by Dr. Akhtar offers a fresh and novel classification of severe personality disorders. He meticulously outlines the characteristics of each of the severe personality disorders and desribes in encyclopedic fashion the technical issues pertaining to their treatment, making this book a valuable desk reference for students as well as for seasoned clinicians.

Vamik D. Volkan, University of Virginia, author of Enemies on the Couch: A Psychopolitical Journey Through War and Peace

This encyclopedic text is most impressive in its ability to organize all the personality disorders in a modern dimensional system while still retaining the nosological categories that emphasize the centrality of identity disturbances and splitting for the more severe forms. Utilizing his wide net of past and present papers and a clear and very readable style, Akhtar has combined the descriptive and dynamic without sacrificing depth of conceptualization for clarity. A wonderful work.

Melvin Singer