James F. Masterson (March 25, 1926—April 12, 2010) was a prominent American psychiatrist.
He was a psychiatrist who helped inaugurate the study and treatment of
personality disorder
Personality disorders (PD) are a class of mental health conditions characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the culture. ...
including
borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive, long-term pattern of significant interpersonal relationship instability, an acute fear of Abandonment (emotional), abandonment, and intense emotiona ...
and
narcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of grandiosity, exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathy, empathize w ...
. He died April 12, 2010, of pneumonia at the age of eighty-four.
On narcissism
In 1993, Masterson proposed two categories for pathological
narcissism
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism, named after the Greek mythological figure ''Narcissus'', has evolv ...
, "exhibitionist" and "closet".
[Masterson, James F. The Emerging Self: A Developmental Self & Object Relations Approach to the Treatment of the Closet Narcissistic Disorder of the Self, 1993]
Works
* ''Psychotherapy of the Borderline Adult: A Developmental Approach''. (Brunner/Mazel, 1976)
* ''The Real Self: A Developmental, Self, and Object Relations Approach''. (Brunner/Mazel, 1985)
* ''The Search for the Real Self: Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our Age''. (Collier Macmillan, 1988)
* ''The Emerging Self: A Developmental Self & Object Relations Approach to the Treatment of the Closet Narcissistic Disorder of the Self'' (Routledge, 1993)
* ''The Personality Disorders Through The Lens of Attachment Theory and the Neurobiologic Development of the Self'' (Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, 2005)
* ''The Search for the Real Self: Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our Age'' (Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 1988)
* ''The Narcissistic and Borderline Disorders'' (Brunner/Mazel, 1981)
* ''The Psychiatric Dilemma of Adolescence'' (Little, Brown, 1967)
* ''Disorders of the Self: New Therapeutic Horizons: The Masterson Approach,'' Masterson & Klein, eds. (Brunner/Mazel, 1995).
References
External links
New Focus on Narcissism offers Analysts insight into Grandiosity and Emptiness
{{DEFAULTSORT:Masterson, James F.
1926 births
2010 deaths
20th-century American psychologists
American psychoanalysts
Narcissism writers
University of Notre Dame alumni
Thomas Jefferson University alumni
Writers from Philadelphia
Deaths from pneumonia in Connecticut