Otto Kernberg, M.D.
Lecturer in Psychiatry, Columbia University
DeWitt Wallace Senior Scholar, Weill Cornell Medical College
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College
Training and Supervising Analyst
Senior Consulting Analyst for Personality Disorders
Areas of Interest
Dr. Kernberg's principal contributions have been in the fields of narcissism, object relations theory and personality disorders. He developed a novel and useful framework for coordinating personality disorders along dimensions of structural organization and severity. Most recently, Dr. Kernberg designed an intensive form of psychoanalytic psychotherapy known as Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP).
Professional Biography
Dr. Kernberg is Past-President of the International Psychoanalytic Association. In the past, Dr. Kernberg served as Director of the C.F. Menninger Memorial Hospital, Supervising and Training Analyst of the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis, and Director of the Psychotherapy Research Project of the Menninger Foundation. Later, he was Director of the General Clinical Service of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.
From 1976 to 1995 he was Associate Chairman and Medical Director of The New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division. Dr. Kernberg was the Book Editor of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association from 1977-1993. He has received numerous awards for his excellence in Psychiatry. He is also the author of 12 books and co-author of 11 others.
Selected Presentations and Publications
- Reflections on Supervision. American Journal of Psychoanalysis. 2019
- Commentary on the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, 2nd Edition: What Does the PDM-2 Add to the Current Diagnostic Panorama?. Psychoanalytic Psychology. 2018
- A contemporary exploration of the contributions of W. R. D. Fairbairn. 2018
- Malignant Narcissism in Relation to Clinical Change in Borderline Personality Disorder: An Exploratory Study. Psychopathology.
- The IPA administration from 1997 to 2001. 2018
- Pair conflicts from a psychoanalytical perspective. Forum der Psychoanalyse. 2017
- The four basic components of psychoanalytic technique and derived psychoanalytic psychotherapies. World Psychiatry. 2016
- Thoughts on the Present and Future of Psychoanalytic Education. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 2016
- What is personality?. Journal of Personality Disorders. 2016
- Some observations of the mourning process (2010). 2016
- Interpretation in the treatment of borderline pathology. Psychoanalytic Inquiry. 2016
- Frontolimbic neural circuit changes in emotional processing and inhibitory control associated with clinical improvement following transference-focused psychotherapy in borderline personality disorder. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. 2016
- Psychoanalytic Education at the Crossroads. 2016
Education and Training
M.D., University of Chile Medical School (Chile) 1953
B.S., University of Chile (Chile) 1947
Residency: 1957 San Borja Hospital
Residency: 1968 Menninger Clinic - Topeka
Honors
1972 Heinz Hartmann Award of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
1975 Edward A. Strecker Award from the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital
1981 George E. Daniels Merit Award of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine.