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The Search For The Real Self: Unmasking The Personality Disorders Of Our Age
Personality disorders - borderline, narcissistic and schizoid - have become the classic psychological disorders of our age. Outwardly successful, charming and powerful, personality-disordered individuals have long confounded their colleagues, family, lovers and employees - as well as mental health professionals. The author helps the reader understand them. After describing how the healthy real self develops and functions, he explains what can go wrong. Drawing on case histories, he shows how the false self behaves in relationships and on the job, and then delineates appropriate treatments, offering real hope for cure.
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1988
111 people are currently reading
860 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 14, 2021
Some seriously dated language that creates stigma BUT, keeping pub date in mind, damn this is good. viewing PDs through Object Relations, psychodynamic theory, and attachment wounds = compassion. I have a clearer understanding of why work with my clients who have “flavors” of personality disorders are in need of confrontation—if, as a therapist, you befriend and join, at what point are you reinforcing dysfunction? When and how to use therapeutic confrontation? Can’t walk on eggshells. If you don’t reflect, in the therapy room, their dysfunction and how it is landing with you, then you’re doing them a disservice, because chances are they are so defended it is difficult for anyone else in their lives to speak with them honestly about their behavior. Heal the initial attachment wound through rupture-and-repair work. Show them how they can survive it.
A supervisor recently told me that the best thing to say at the end of a session with a client suffering from BPD is to “have a boring week.” To tell them when something small and quiet reminds you of them—because they’ve learned that they are only worthy of attention if they are stuck in the swirl of drama, and telling stories about it. Another piece of advice she gave me is to say: “Wow, it sounds like you are always the victim. Hm.” Incredibly difficult for a newish clinician like me to say, but after reading this book, I get why it is my responsibility to do so.
A supervisor recently told me that the best thing to say at the end of a session with a client suffering from BPD is to “have a boring week.” To tell them when something small and quiet reminds you of them—because they’ve learned that they are only worthy of attention if they are stuck in the swirl of drama, and telling stories about it. Another piece of advice she gave me is to say: “Wow, it sounds like you are always the victim. Hm.” Incredibly difficult for a newish clinician like me to say, but after reading this book, I get why it is my responsibility to do so.
September 26, 2013
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in human nature or psychology. It describes where borderline and narcissistic personality disorders come from and the kinds of behaviors they lead to in adults. It is written more for therapists than those seeking self-help, but the writing was clear and made sense to me as a layman. A lot of the ideas are applicable to all people, not just those with personality disorders, so I think just about anyone would find it fascinating.
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December 3, 2025I'm not adding a star rating to a Clin Psych book.
very dated (therapeutic success defined as becoming a tradwife or a real estate agent) so you have to pick around some of that. but the core framework - real self / fake self / self protection / transference feels solid even maybe as a parenting guide(?). unsure, but I'm certain it'll be folded into my views on life and mind!
very dated (therapeutic success defined as becoming a tradwife or a real estate agent) so you have to pick around some of that. but the core framework - real self / fake self / self protection / transference feels solid even maybe as a parenting guide(?). unsure, but I'm certain it'll be folded into my views on life and mind!
October 29, 2013
Not so much a self help as it is a clinical psychology book primarily focus on abandonment depression. Even then, is one that I would recommend to many.
Starts off with how the developement of a child in the first few years can effect them as they get older. The importance of particular behaviors and games that youngster play and how the parent(s) respond to them. The later chapters go into the variations of how the impairment of one's developement can effect them in various aspect of their life and the defences that are created to deal with it.
Of coarse it also talks about how to treat this individuals to help them develope theirselves and find confidence within. He mainly consitrates on the borderline and narcissist, but also touches on the sciziod.
Starts off with how the developement of a child in the first few years can effect them as they get older. The importance of particular behaviors and games that youngster play and how the parent(s) respond to them. The later chapters go into the variations of how the impairment of one's developement can effect them in various aspect of their life and the defences that are created to deal with it.
Of coarse it also talks about how to treat this individuals to help them develope theirselves and find confidence within. He mainly consitrates on the borderline and narcissist, but also touches on the sciziod.
April 11, 2025
It is an absolutely fantastic 5-star book on character disorders if you know the ways it is outdated, how the concepts of personality have developed and regressed, as well what the empirical outcomes related to confrontation are. It's a powerful and vivid model presented through lively vignettes and a moving chapter on famous artists.
January 14, 2024
I started to love the Masterson approach with this book. So many modern approaches in psychotherapy ignore a deep understanding of the self that I can only hold on to this book as a true gem. I am happily and proudly starting my supervised training in this approach this year.
Quite easy to read even for someone not familiar with psychoanalysis. Lots of stories to support the theory and lots of compassion from the author towards any personality on the spectrum. Even the classically rejected narcissist got his fair share of sympathy and kindness, which I really appreciate, especially when looking at the plethora of books now available on the market which address the narcissistic personality like it is a pest.
It can help also for understanding one's self, but I'm not sure how much of a psychological background you need for that. I'm a therapist and weeped like a baby while going through the chapters addressing my self structure type. A lot was unpacked there.
Quite easy to read even for someone not familiar with psychoanalysis. Lots of stories to support the theory and lots of compassion from the author towards any personality on the spectrum. Even the classically rejected narcissist got his fair share of sympathy and kindness, which I really appreciate, especially when looking at the plethora of books now available on the market which address the narcissistic personality like it is a pest.
It can help also for understanding one's self, but I'm not sure how much of a psychological background you need for that. I'm a therapist and weeped like a baby while going through the chapters addressing my self structure type. A lot was unpacked there.
February 18, 2013
An important book which explains the early childhood antecedents of the borderline (deficient) personality elements which so many suffer from and which inhibit their work and love lives. But these borderline elements (weakness of basic psychological abilities), which are fairly common among psychotherapy patients, differ from a borderline personality disorder which is far more severe and less frequent. I praised this book in the introduction to the 2nd edition of one of my books, Troubled Children/Troubled Parents. The author's death was a great loss.
April 13, 2025
This was my second time reading The Search for the Real Self and it continues to be the most influential, eye-opening book I’ve ever read. Masterson’s 1988 work is important if you want to understand the psychology of being human in our modern age. He deftly describes human vulnerabilities and Faustian dilemmas commonly seen in themes by great writers like Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment), Tolstoy (Anna Karenina), Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Proust (The Prisoner), Lewis (The Silver Chair) and Kafka (The Trial). In the one almost literary moment in Masterson’s writing about personality disorders, he states: “They cannot seek, for they are blind; they cannot fight, for they have no weapons with which to do battle. Unable to face their fate, they make a virtue of their incompetence and passivity. Their chains become a refuge; their way of life in all its human misery is defended as their pathway to salvation.” The people Masterson describes are controlled by their unknown face, they do not know themselves and their world as well as they should.
The book discusses symptoms and clinical treatment for borderline and narcissistic personality disorder, but because Masterson describes everything so well, the reader can see the humanity in these disorders and how certain symptoms also relate to everyone at some point in their life. Relying heavily on research by Austrian-American psychoanalyst Margaret Mahler, Masterson claims that development of one’s “real self” is influenced by how well they are able to separate from their mother as an infant. If the separation is not successful, the felt abandonment depression is so strong that it reverberates throughout their life, and these chains will help keep people from self-actualization later at key moments, where perhaps they choose a false path because it relieves anxiety and pain (i.e. choosing the easy job, the safe partner, or a community where everyone looks like you). His theory is his justification for the creation of personality disorders and also how well (or not so well) people develop throughout life. While Masterson leans heavily on this Freudian interpretation of human development throughout the book, he does also imply there can be other stressors in someone’s life that could throw them off balance, and a conflict wouldn’t necessarily always be traceable to the mother-infant relationship.
What follows a false, incongruous path to development Masterson later explains, is what he calls the “Six Horseman of the Psychotic Apocalypse: Depression, Panic, Rage, Guilt, Helplessness (hopelessness), and Emptiness (void).” Luckily, he never gets too esoteric or conceptual as books on psychology often do, but instead utilizes numerous case studies and real life examples to prove his points. This makes the book more enjoyable to read and more relatable. What Masterson is really describing underneath it all, is the difference between someone who becomes their authentic self and asserts themselves, versus someone who tries but is unable, or maybe doesn’t know how. So how do people continue past setbacks and push back when faced with life’s obstacles? How do people mature and become truly themselves in our modern age? Is that even possible when someone has a personality disorder? Personal meaning in life must be created, not accepted as Masterson states, and the process of creating it requires testing and experimentation. But what if someone has personal baggage (a personality disorder, trauma, etc.) that inhibits them from necessary experimentation?
Masterson dives into these topics and while most of the book is about the consequences of a ‘“false self,” he does also give numerous examples of asserting one’s “real self” and not being afraid of that path. Possibly the best part of the book is the end when he psychoanalyzes three artists (Jean-Paul Sarte, Edvard Munch, and Thomas Wolfe) and shows how they overcame obstacles in life and used art (writing, painting) to self-actualize. He goes more in detail with Wolfe. He traces Wolfe’s life to show that it is in human creativity and imagination that people can engage their true selves (besides confronting their past and true feelings in therapy). For the majority of the population that are not artists however, Masterson highlights that creativity in innovative thinking and problem solving also enables them to experiment in love and work, and thus evade the clutches of the Psychotic Apocalypse mentioned previously. The one criticism in Masterson’s treatment approach would probably come from someone like Jungian analyst Nathan Schwartz-Salant (The Borderline Personality: Vision and Healing), who would probably counter-argue that this kind of imaginative model is also necessary in clinical treatment, in addition to the projection model.
From my own point of view, the connections between this book and the current political and social climate in the United States is that just as the borderline will avoid the abandonment depression (or “feeling bad”) by acting out and choosing an authority figure who will relieve them of the task of taking responsibility for themselves, the United States is resembling other countries who have selected authoritarian political figures who do the same thing. It would seem that societies do not want the burden of doing the necessary work it takes to be independent or democratic. The effect is a false “Faustian” path that trades their independence for someone to guide their life for them, and someone who will keep them from feeling the difficult feelings one must confront in order to grow as a person or society. If I were also to go out on a limb with my limited knowledge of psychoanalyst Joan Lachkar’s term “dual projective identification,” I would say that just as patients with personality disorders frequently describe their childhoods as concentration camps and their parents as prison guards, the United States, and other countries, have recreated a similar scenario by detaining thousands of people without due process and breaking up families. Each side in the political sphere projects its inner, unwanted fears onto the other and in this case, it is as if one side has over-identified with that projection, which in turn, has reinforced the other’s distorted feelings of “badness.” It is not typical for people to invite their own submission, or ask for the subjugation of others, but if they had a weakness inside they were not aware of, or a fear that dominated their inner psyche, then chances are it might be projected outward and become reality.
The connections between this book and the world (in my point of view) can be seen where countries kill innocent women and children in border wars all in the name of security. Relinquishing independence and morality might seem like a small price to pay in order to feel safe and avoid the anxiety and depression needed for a healthy sense of self, or in this case, an ethically responsible country. But what really is that cost when it comes with innocent blood on one’s hands? After reading this book, I would argue that those political actions are a result of not only leaders who need psychoanalytic therapy – since they are helping turn our world into societies with more borderline and narcissistic traits – but also the result of dangerous projections from all of us in society on a “false path.” It is not a stretch to say that we are a world dominated by personality disorders, and that is why this book is such an important clarifying book for our times. The disorders are not always explicit and not ones that can be clinically diagnosed for they frequently operate underground, out of sight, and deep in one’s subconscious. But they are there nonetheless. It doesn’t take an expert to diagnose one country’s brutal aggression towards another as psychologically unstable or possessing “borderline/narcissistic rage.” It also doesn’t take an expert to diagnose a leader’s unfathomable lack of empathy by denying people life-saving resources as pathological or narcissistic. We are living in a world where the blind are leading the blind, and where incalculable destruction always seems avoidable. As Masterson so eloquently described years ago, our way of life in all its human misery, is defended as its pathway to salvation.
The book discusses symptoms and clinical treatment for borderline and narcissistic personality disorder, but because Masterson describes everything so well, the reader can see the humanity in these disorders and how certain symptoms also relate to everyone at some point in their life. Relying heavily on research by Austrian-American psychoanalyst Margaret Mahler, Masterson claims that development of one’s “real self” is influenced by how well they are able to separate from their mother as an infant. If the separation is not successful, the felt abandonment depression is so strong that it reverberates throughout their life, and these chains will help keep people from self-actualization later at key moments, where perhaps they choose a false path because it relieves anxiety and pain (i.e. choosing the easy job, the safe partner, or a community where everyone looks like you). His theory is his justification for the creation of personality disorders and also how well (or not so well) people develop throughout life. While Masterson leans heavily on this Freudian interpretation of human development throughout the book, he does also imply there can be other stressors in someone’s life that could throw them off balance, and a conflict wouldn’t necessarily always be traceable to the mother-infant relationship.
What follows a false, incongruous path to development Masterson later explains, is what he calls the “Six Horseman of the Psychotic Apocalypse: Depression, Panic, Rage, Guilt, Helplessness (hopelessness), and Emptiness (void).” Luckily, he never gets too esoteric or conceptual as books on psychology often do, but instead utilizes numerous case studies and real life examples to prove his points. This makes the book more enjoyable to read and more relatable. What Masterson is really describing underneath it all, is the difference between someone who becomes their authentic self and asserts themselves, versus someone who tries but is unable, or maybe doesn’t know how. So how do people continue past setbacks and push back when faced with life’s obstacles? How do people mature and become truly themselves in our modern age? Is that even possible when someone has a personality disorder? Personal meaning in life must be created, not accepted as Masterson states, and the process of creating it requires testing and experimentation. But what if someone has personal baggage (a personality disorder, trauma, etc.) that inhibits them from necessary experimentation?
Masterson dives into these topics and while most of the book is about the consequences of a ‘“false self,” he does also give numerous examples of asserting one’s “real self” and not being afraid of that path. Possibly the best part of the book is the end when he psychoanalyzes three artists (Jean-Paul Sarte, Edvard Munch, and Thomas Wolfe) and shows how they overcame obstacles in life and used art (writing, painting) to self-actualize. He goes more in detail with Wolfe. He traces Wolfe’s life to show that it is in human creativity and imagination that people can engage their true selves (besides confronting their past and true feelings in therapy). For the majority of the population that are not artists however, Masterson highlights that creativity in innovative thinking and problem solving also enables them to experiment in love and work, and thus evade the clutches of the Psychotic Apocalypse mentioned previously. The one criticism in Masterson’s treatment approach would probably come from someone like Jungian analyst Nathan Schwartz-Salant (The Borderline Personality: Vision and Healing), who would probably counter-argue that this kind of imaginative model is also necessary in clinical treatment, in addition to the projection model.
From my own point of view, the connections between this book and the current political and social climate in the United States is that just as the borderline will avoid the abandonment depression (or “feeling bad”) by acting out and choosing an authority figure who will relieve them of the task of taking responsibility for themselves, the United States is resembling other countries who have selected authoritarian political figures who do the same thing. It would seem that societies do not want the burden of doing the necessary work it takes to be independent or democratic. The effect is a false “Faustian” path that trades their independence for someone to guide their life for them, and someone who will keep them from feeling the difficult feelings one must confront in order to grow as a person or society. If I were also to go out on a limb with my limited knowledge of psychoanalyst Joan Lachkar’s term “dual projective identification,” I would say that just as patients with personality disorders frequently describe their childhoods as concentration camps and their parents as prison guards, the United States, and other countries, have recreated a similar scenario by detaining thousands of people without due process and breaking up families. Each side in the political sphere projects its inner, unwanted fears onto the other and in this case, it is as if one side has over-identified with that projection, which in turn, has reinforced the other’s distorted feelings of “badness.” It is not typical for people to invite their own submission, or ask for the subjugation of others, but if they had a weakness inside they were not aware of, or a fear that dominated their inner psyche, then chances are it might be projected outward and become reality.
The connections between this book and the world (in my point of view) can be seen where countries kill innocent women and children in border wars all in the name of security. Relinquishing independence and morality might seem like a small price to pay in order to feel safe and avoid the anxiety and depression needed for a healthy sense of self, or in this case, an ethically responsible country. But what really is that cost when it comes with innocent blood on one’s hands? After reading this book, I would argue that those political actions are a result of not only leaders who need psychoanalytic therapy – since they are helping turn our world into societies with more borderline and narcissistic traits – but also the result of dangerous projections from all of us in society on a “false path.” It is not a stretch to say that we are a world dominated by personality disorders, and that is why this book is such an important clarifying book for our times. The disorders are not always explicit and not ones that can be clinically diagnosed for they frequently operate underground, out of sight, and deep in one’s subconscious. But they are there nonetheless. It doesn’t take an expert to diagnose one country’s brutal aggression towards another as psychologically unstable or possessing “borderline/narcissistic rage.” It also doesn’t take an expert to diagnose a leader’s unfathomable lack of empathy by denying people life-saving resources as pathological or narcissistic. We are living in a world where the blind are leading the blind, and where incalculable destruction always seems avoidable. As Masterson so eloquently described years ago, our way of life in all its human misery, is defended as its pathway to salvation.
September 9, 2020
I'm so happy over having read this book and the lessons I could derive from it.This book took me to a deeper understanding of the "self" I never had.
It was detailed, nuanced, includes complexities and well written.
I particularly enjoyed the chapter where the author was describing the formation of the "self" in the infant and his response to his mother during the early years.
I enjoyed the parallels he gave the stories such as Cinderella - shows you how the archetype of borderline is depicted in stories.
It was like reading myself in the book and I understood myself better. Some parts stirred some emotions in me and it definitely felt difficult reading it.
As for criticism
-some parts were exaggerated.
-Repetitive too. I would like to see some of quite borderline , "the acting in " one which there are rare resources on. A section on treatment would have made the book complete
The author is clearly impacted by Freudian psychology , some parts were distasteful. I too didn't like how he referred to his Female patients as "attractive".
I was also hoping to see more om self-abandonment . And in reality people usually come with a number of intertwined problems. While his research is on the self, it would be a value added to have it in the context of other mental illnesses or personality as well, to see how the different mental illnesses interact.
It was detailed, nuanced, includes complexities and well written.
I particularly enjoyed the chapter where the author was describing the formation of the "self" in the infant and his response to his mother during the early years.
I enjoyed the parallels he gave the stories such as Cinderella - shows you how the archetype of borderline is depicted in stories.
It was like reading myself in the book and I understood myself better. Some parts stirred some emotions in me and it definitely felt difficult reading it.
As for criticism
-some parts were exaggerated.
-Repetitive too. I would like to see some of quite borderline , "the acting in " one which there are rare resources on. A section on treatment would have made the book complete
The author is clearly impacted by Freudian psychology , some parts were distasteful. I too didn't like how he referred to his Female patients as "attractive".
I was also hoping to see more om self-abandonment . And in reality people usually come with a number of intertwined problems. While his research is on the self, it would be a value added to have it in the context of other mental illnesses or personality as well, to see how the different mental illnesses interact.
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April 2, 2025There’s a dual focus in The Search for the Real Self: Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our Age. It starts with the obvious “real self.” The second focus is two ends of what Masterson considers a dimension or continuum. On the one side, we have what he calls the borderline – a person who can’t express themselves due to their lack of real self – and on the other, the narcissist – a person who has an inflated false self that prevents them from getting close. For Masterson, finding a real self was protection from both extremes.
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April 30, 2021
It’s a good starter on the origins of and mental structures of personality disorders. I’ve found the explanations for these to be detailed and satisfying. However, the many references to Freudian psychology frustrates me. Intersections with gender also aren’t taken into account. The borderline cases are mostly female while the narcissistic cases are all male. This doesn’t accurately reflect the population of people with personality disorders.
July 2, 2019
Jim Masterson wrote this with such Compassion tgat it's hard to engage in Shaming or ostracizing, as a result. Possibly boring to those seeking a drier, more clinical time, it's detailed sufficiently engage a layperson reading it.
May 18, 2017
One of the best books out there on the search for the authentic self. A must read for all therapists.
November 27, 2020
Older theory of BPD based on Margaret Mahler’s theory of infant development
February 6, 2024
Stopped reading
December 4, 2024
I didn't expect it to teach my so much about parenting, great read
December 21, 2024
Herkesin okumasi gerek
November 19, 2012
On the face of it, this book looks a bit like a self help book, but is actually much deeper than that. I would say it was primarily aimed at psychology health professionals as it goes on the describe therapies to use for disorder treatments. Nevertheless, I did read the first few chapters and found them hard going but informative.
I could really do with something aimed more at the man in the street.
I could really do with something aimed more at the man in the street.
June 13, 2013
Very easy read. I love how it's written and his presentation of the pre-egoic personality disorders. He includes many real life examples of people with Narcissistic, Borderline, and Schizoid Personality Disorders. My only wish is that he continued on in describing OCPD, HPD and so on in the same exact way.
July 4, 2007
I read this based on Lynne's recommendation, and found it very worthwhile. Thanks, Lynne!
February 12, 2011
A good, basic intro to.
April 12, 2012
This book changed my life when I was 12 or 13. I read it again every year or so, to slightly less effect. Still: excellent.
June 14, 2012
Great professional resource as a deeper discussion about personality disorders and effective treatments.
April 16, 2013
Excellent book, especially the last chapter about the role of creativity in finding your true self. Contains eye-opening profiles of artists: Sartre, Tom Wolfe and Munch.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews