Dr. Otto Kernberg Masterclass - "Personality and Personality Disorders: An overview" (Part 1/3)

Good afternoon my name is Dr Ubergi I'm
the coordinator of the graduate programs

Here and counsel in psychology and
psychotherapy

I want to welcome everyone, specifically
our guest Dr. Lance McWilliams

who is here for the third time,
and Dr Kernberg that we have the great

honor of hosting here at the college.

I have to say that I'm actually personally

moved because, as a graduate student in
New York

I felt very proud I had the chance to see
one of your lectures.

And I never thought that
I would get the chance again

so, [laughs] I have been
very honored to have that

privilege for a second time.

I want to invite the provost to the podium
so that he can introduce our guests.

Thank you, everyone for coming
and enjoy the lecture

[applause]

Wow, this is a wonderful crowd.

Welcome, to the American College of Greece
Delighted to see you all.

I want to welcome you on my behalf
as well as our president who could not

be here today due to an emergency
meeting.

It's always nice to have people
on this campus

besides, of course, our students who are here and

always here and [...] here night and day I think

But we're here to uh to partake in this important

event because we have two distinguished people

visiting us. Of course, uh, Lance McWilliams is here

for the third time and we're delighted to have you,

thank you. And of course Otto Kernberg

Who is, of course an scholar in the field.

As I was looking at the some of his background I-I noticed that we had something

in common. Uh, which is that we spent, not at the

same time, but at different times

a number of years ago

Topeka, Kansas, both of us

Uh, and I had actually visited

the, uh, medical clinic

because I had two friends

good friends, who actually were doctors there

and they were a bad influence on me

because they, uh, told me how to smoke cigars.

Anyway. Uh,

This is one of the important reasons why educational institutions exist

, to add to the body of knowledge and to share

knowledge. That's what we're doing this next two days tonight, next two days.

Uh, you probably know much

about Professor Kernberg but, uh, I should tell you that he's the

director of personality disorders institute

at the New York Presbyterian hospital

Of course Professor Meritas, of psychiatry at Yale Medical College

Cornell. And, you know I can go on and on.

You are here because you know all of that

We're delighted to have you.

Uh, next McWilliams teaches at Rutgers University

graduate school of professional psychology

and has of course a practice as well in New Jersey

as he told me he's originally Massachusetts,

as is also renowned author and scholar.

We're delighted to have you to come up and

speak and introduce our honored guest. Welcome, thank you.

[applause]

Hello..[different language]

Thank you. Um, I see many familiar faces and it's

wonderful to be back

Uh, here's the plan for tonight

I'm going to say a few words about Dr. Kernberg. Uh, he is going

to talk for about an hour, uh, then we will

open it up for discussion. I find that I

often learn more when I'm engaged with

dialogue and that's often true with Dr. Kernberg. I've

learned more from him when he has an opportunity

to respond to questions and comments.

Uh, what I want to say about him is that he is

a great integrator, this probably has something to do

with the fact that he was both European

or all three, European, South American, and North

American. He's got very wide interests

in the science and the social sciences and especially

the arts. Um, many of you know his writings

but perhaps you don't know as much about

his longstanding interest in supervising

and engaging with creative others, whether students or colleagues.

He's been tireless politically in challenging

training procedures that deaden therapists'

natural vitality and subdue their

curiosity, and their creativity.

He enjoys differences of opinion,

and never takes them personally.

And, he never loses the differentiation

between ideas that he may not like

and thinkers that he may like very much as people.

So he's a very easy person to have an interesting argument with.

I won't go on too long because I'm going to start embarrassing him, but one

thing I do want to say is that is that unlike

many important theorists,

he is allergic to being idealized.

Uh, my personal debt to him though is very great, and I just wanted

to take this opportunity to say something

about that. When I got the idea to write the diagnosis

that I know many of you have read

I was an unknown in the field and I went to him and he gave me

of his time, he shared his lunch with me,

and he encouraged me to write that book.

I don't know if you remember that meeting, but

it made a great deal of difference

to me, and he's done that with numerous people

uh, throughout the field.

I also wanted to acknowledge his wife

Kay Heran and his longtime colleague

whom I've been pleased to know for more than 20 years.

So, having said all that, I will turn the program over to Dr. Kernberg

who's gonna be talking about components and functions

of a normal personality, the nature of personality disorders, their overall symptyomology and underlying structure, and the relationship between

neural-biological, interpsychic, and behavioral aspects

of normal and pathological personality organization.

[applause]

Thank you, Nancy, for your kind introduction

Uh, I'm impressed by the fact that I

imagine that everyone speaks english here

although that I assume that this college

can you hear me in the last row?

Yes? Okay.

Um, So I would like to

review with you the concept of personality-

personality disorder.

Um, it, um, it is a an actual issue, because,

there is so much confusion about it in the field.

There is so much controversy because different researchers

have studied different aspects of personality.

Both normal and abnormal. And each of them

classifies and organizes things according to his

own field. Um you have Cloniger who started

affect systems and um then, classifies personality

according to the predominant pathology

one of the major[....] that determine

major affect activation.

Uh, you have um, social physiologists

along with Benjamin who is interested in the

social [...] aspects of personality.

Organize into concepts of affiliative versus

aversive or hostile behavior. Dominants and submission

and that creates a structure of personality

builds on the inter-personal functions of it.

You have the psycho annalists who will use

classifications of the bases of prodominant

drive. The drive conflicts the oral, anal phallic

personality structure.

It's central. And then of course

the Epidemiologists, who study, um, large

groups of normal popluations. Make endless lists of

personality traits. About 150 and submit

thousands of individuals to them. And find out

which one by factor, by ethic status.

Group together and classify personality

according to the grouping of personality

traits of those tests. Of those instruments.

This leads to the 5 factor theory that I'm sure that everybody knows.