ABSTRACT
Dependent personality disorder (DPD) is recognized by its pervasive pattern of dependency and submissive behavior. Even though it is considered more amenable to treatment than borderline or narcissistic personality disorders, effective treatment of DPD involves a number of unique therapeutic challenges. This chapter describes a number of specific strategies for effectively managing and treating this disorder with regard to engagement, pattern analysis, pattern change, and pattern maintenance. In addition to individual psychotherapeutic strategies and tactics, group, marital, family, medication, and integrative and combined treatment strategies are detailed. An extensive case example illustrates the treatment process. Before turning to treatment strategies, the DSM-IV description and criteria are briefly presented.
