Nancy McWilliams

{{BLP sources|date=October 2015|section}}

Born in 1945 in Abington, Pennsylvania, she grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, New Canaan, Connecticut, and Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1967, with honors in Political Science. Subsequently, she studied psychology at Brooklyn College and then received her Master's and Doctoral degrees from Rutgers University in Psychology (Personality and Social). In 1978 she was licensed as an independent psychologist in New Jersey and also graduated from the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis in New York. Since 2010, she has been Board Certified in Psychoanalysis in Psychology.

In 2011, the American Psychological Association chose her to represent psychoanalytic therapy in the remake of the classic film, Three Approaches to Psychotherapy. In 2015, she was asked to be the plenary speaker at the American Psychological Association convention in Toronto, Canada. She is a member of the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey and an Honorary Member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Moscow Psychoanalytic Society, the Institute for Psychoanalytic Therapy in Turin, Italy, and the Warsaw Scientific Association for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. She has given graduation addresses at the Smith College School for Social Work and the Yale University School of Medicine. In the summer of 2016 she was the Erikson Scholar at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In 2016, she taught a course on "The Minister and Mental Health" at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her writings have been translated into 20 languages,{{Cite web |last=McWilliams |first=Nancy |title=Nancy McWilliams, PhD, ABPP {{!}} Psychologist-Psychoanalyst-Author |url=https://nancymcwilliams.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230424230044/https://nancymcwilliams.com/ |archive-date=24 April 2023 |access-date=25 April 2023 |website=nancymcwilliams.com}} and she has taught in 30 countries.

Her areas of specialty include psychoanalytic theories, individual differences, personality, the relationship between psychological diagnosis and treatment, alternatives to DSM diagnostic conventions, integration of feminist theory and psychoanalytic knowledge, and the application of psychoanalytic understanding to the problems of diverse clinical populations.

McWilliams' 1994 book Psychoanalytic Diagnosis, published in a second edition in 2011, is considered by psychoanalysts and psychodynamic psychotherapists to be a classic text on the diagnosis of patients within these theoretical frameworks.{{Cite journal |last=Diamond |first=Diana |date=2012 |title=Review of Psychoanalytic diagnosis: Understanding personality structure in the clinical process, second edition. |url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/a0030405 |journal=Psychoanalytic Psychology |language=en |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=494–504 |doi=10.1037/a0030405 |issn=1939-1331|url-access=subscription }} It was described by Otto F. Kernberg as serving an "essential function" in educating about a psychoanalytic understanding of personality and personality disorders.{{Cite journal |last=Kernberg |first=Otto F. |author-link=Otto F. Kernberg |date=2013 |title=Psychoanalytic Diagnosis |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-8315.12007 |journal=The International Journal of Psychoanalysis |language=en |volume=94 |issue=6 |pages=1242–1244 |doi=10.1111/1745-8315.12007 |s2cid=142071741 |issn=0020-7578|url-access=subscription }}

The book criticizes the approach to diagnosis widely adopted in the United States following the publication of the DSM-III in 1980, and instead attempts to develop an alternative approach that mixes elements of classical drive theory, object relations theory, ego psychology, neurobiology, attachment theory, and modern psychodynamic theory in general, often taking a relational perspective. It relates these theoretical considerations to their implications for the practice of psychotherapy.

In contrast to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis is focused chiefly on personality, and in particular personality disorders. While the book takes an eclectic approach, it does propose a specific diagnostic framework containing nine distinct "types of character organization", namely:

1. psychopathic personalities, which correspond to antisocial personality disorder in the DSM;
2. narcissistic personalities, which correspond to narcissistic personality disorder;
3. schizoid personalities, which encompass schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and avoidant personality disorder, and relates to schizotypy and the schizophrenia spectrum in general;
4. paranoid personalities, which correspond to paranoid personality disorder;
5. depressive and manic personalities, which relate to various DSM diagnoses, including the former depressive personality disorder;{{Rp|page=235}}
6. masochistic or self-defeating personalities, which correspond to the unrecognized self-defeating personality disorder;
7. obsessive and compulsive personalities, which correspond to obsessive–compulsive personality disorder;
8. hysterical or histrionic personalities, which correspond to histrionic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder;{{Cite book |title=Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual: PDM-2 |title-link=Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual |publisher=Guilford Press |year=2017 |isbn=9781462530557 |editor-last=Lingiardi |editor-first=Vittorio |editor-link=Vittorio Lingiardi |edition=2nd |location=New York |page=44 |language=en |editor-last2=McWilliams |editor-first2=Nancy |editor-link2=Nancy McWilliams}} and
9. dissociative psychologies, which relate to various psychological phenomena, including derealization, depersonalization, the associated depersonalization–derealization disorder, and in extreme cases, dissociative identity disorder.

These personalities are described in terms of their underlying defense mechanisms, of which the book outlines ten "primary defensive processes" and another fifteen "secondary defensive processes".

Additionally, the book identifies a spectrum of developmental levels of organization, which is partitioned into three sections, namely the neurotic, borderline and psychotic ranges of functioning. Here, "borderline" is used in the sense of Otto Kernberg's borderline personality organization{{Cite journal |last=Kernberg |first=Otto |author-link=Otto F. Kernberg |date=1967 |title=Borderline Personality Organization |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000306516701500309 |journal=Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association |language=en |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=641–685 |doi=10.1177/000306516701500309 |pmid=4861171 |s2cid=32199139 |issn=0003-0651|url-access=subscription }} (BPO), which is distinct from what is now usually called borderline personality disorder (BPD).

McWilliams is the author of several books on psychoanalysis, personality and psychotherapy:

• {{Cite book |last=McWilliams |first=Nancy |title=Psychoanalytic Diagnosis |title-link=Psychoanalytic Diagnosis |publisher=Guilford Press |year=2011 |isbn=9781609184940 |edition=2nd |author-mask=2}} First edition published in 1994.
• {{Cite book |last=McWilliams |first=Nancy |title=Psychoanalytic Case Formulation |publisher=Guilford Press |year=1999 |isbn=9781572304628 |edition= |author-mask=2}}
• {{Cite book |last=McWilliams |first=Nancy |title=Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Practitioner's Guide |publisher=Guilford Press |year=2004 |isbn=9781593850098 |edition= |author-mask=2}}
• {{Cite book |last=McWilliams |first=Nancy |title=Psychoanalytic Supervision |publisher=Guilford Press |year=2021 |isbn=9781462547999 |edition= |author-mask=2}}

She is also Associate Editor of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, first published in 2006,{{Cite book |title=Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) |title-link=Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual |publisher=Guilford Press |year=2006 |isbn=9780976775829 |editor-last=Lingiardi |editor-first=Vittorio |editor-link=Vittorio Lingiardi |edition=1st |editor-last2=McWilliams |editor-first2=Nancy}} and published in a second edition (PDM-2) in 2017:

• {{Cite book |title=Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2) |title-link=Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual |publisher=Guilford Press |year=2017 |isbn=9781462530540 |editor-last=Lingiardi |editor-first=Vittorio |editor-link=Vittorio Lingiardi |edition=2nd |editor-last2=McWilliams |editor-first2=Nancy |editor-mask2=2}}

Awards include the Gradiva Prize for her second{{Cite web |title=Psychoanalytic Case Formulation |url=https://www.guilford.com/books/Psychoanalytic-Case-Formulation/Nancy-McWilliams/9781572304628 |access-date=2023-04-24 |website=Guilford Press |language=}} and fourth{{Cite web |title=National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) 2022 Gravida Award Winners |url=https://naap.org/2022-gradiva-award-winners/ |access-date=25 April 2023}} books, the Rosalee Weiss award for contributions to practice,{{Cite web |date= 18 July 2014|title=Rosalee G. Weiss Award |url=https://societyforpsychotherapy.org/rosalee-g-weiss-award/ |access-date=2023-04-24 |website=Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy}} the Division of Psychoanalysis awards for leadership (2005),{{Cite web |title=Division 39 Membership Services - Awards Committee |url=https://div39members.wildapricot.org/awards |access-date=2023-04-29 |website=div39members.wildapricot.org}} scholarship (2012), and international academic excellence (2021), the Laughlin distinguished teacher award, the Goethe Scholarship award, and the Hans Strupp award for teaching, practice and writing.

{{Reflist}}

• [http://nancymcwilliams.com/ Official website]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:McWilliams, Nancy}}

Category:American psychoanalysts

Category:American women psychologists

Category:Rutgers University faculty

Category:Living people

Category:Nationality missing

Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

Category:Brooklyn College alumni

Category:Oberlin College alumni

Category:1945 births

Category:20th-century American psychologists