The Day I Went Missing: A True Story [Paperback]

Jennifer Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2002

It’s happened to all of us at one time: falling victim to someone who says the words we want to hear. It usually ends with a wounded heart or lost love. But in one woman’s case, it took a deadly turn.

Jennifer Miller, an Emmy-nominated TV writer, was a highly functioning member of the Hollywood scene who had everything going for her: great contacts, great work, and the promise of an even greater future. But what Jennifer did not have was a happy life, or even the ability to understand what happy meant. A single woman who did not know what it was like to have a love relationship, she was haunted by a deepening despair. She toyed with therapy, but Jennifer, the daughter of a shrink, was convinced that she was beyond help. Then she met Dr. David Cohen, and discovered something worse than depression.

Believing she had finally found someone to trust completely, Jennifer allowed herself to get sucked into Dr. Cohen’s world. What followed is a chilling tale of fraudulent therapy that is enthralling and horrifying from its skillful beginning to its shocking conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Imagine the sucker punch of discovering that one's trusted therapist is a con artist. This devastating act of betrayal befell Miller, an accomplished television writer (nominated for an Emmy for her work on Roseanne). In this engrossing memoir, she recounts how she was taken in by charismatic, unconventional David Cohen, whom she thought might finally ease the residual feelings of disconnection and depression from her emotionally deprived childhood. Through cunning, escalating requests that Miller pay for therapy up front, as well as a crazy gambling scam after she was well and truly hooked, Cohen shook close to $100,000 out of Miller in little over a year, then faded out of her life, claiming he had cancer. While there are times the reader questions how Miller could have been so duped (at one point Cohen gets her signature, saying it's his hobby to collect them), for the most part she convincingly and dramatically conveys the mental seduction that made such deception possible. Miller also acknowledges thatAcompared to other therapists she has known, including her own aloof psychiatrist father and the ineffectual if not inept psychologists she had before and after CohenAhe may have been her most effective counselor. He also, quite simply, provides her with some great material: fascinating, elaborate lies (claims that he had multiple children, that he was abused by a satanic cult); messianic and stalker-like behavior; and a mysteriousAand perhaps not certainAdeath. Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, the Writer's Shop. (Feb. ) Forecast: Combining the reflective self-examination of Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted and Mary Karr's The Liar's Club with the page-turning pace of suspense fiction, this memoir will grab anyone who's ever been on the therapist's couch. (Unsurprisingly, master of horror Wes Craven already has snapped up this story for screen adaptation.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The artful con job has a kind of creepy allure. Even TV writer Miller's horrifying true story of treachery, deceit, and betrayal on the part of the therapist she had learned to love and trust fascinates and excites us as its sad, sick drama unfolds. Therapist David Cohen routinely and intentionally violated Jennifer, who was, ironically, the daughter of a shrink famous for his work with adolescents, in every way except sexually. He added layer upon layer of lies as he gouged her for $100,000, all the while using her love-starved feelings of worthlessness to his own advantage. Apparently aiding and abetting him was his wife, Roxanna, who--here comes the kicker--may have seduced him into devil worship and then murdered him. After all, was it his body that was eventually found in his apartment, or was that part of the scam, too? Discrepancies abound, and, unlike on TV or in films, no neat solutions or revelations are forthcoming. In real life, despicable acts have dire consequences, but often no real answers. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (April 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312282036
• ISBN-13: 978-0312282035
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,168,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just plain weird, April 10, 2001

By 

Mary G. Longorio "Texasbookgirl" (Eagle Mountain, UT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Day I Went Missing: A True Story (Hardcover)

The Day I Went Missing is a disturbing look into one woman's quest for self understanding through psycho-therapy, and the disaaterous results . Jennifer Miller had worked as a writer on various TV shows, was achieveing some measure of success but, sensed something was lacking in her life. Paul, a friend, suggested she see his therapist David Cohen. This new doctor-patient pairing is the beginning of Miller's decent into a confusing and expensive world of the weirdest therapy (and scam) encountered. There are numerous times when a red warning flags went up as I read this book, and I had a hard time understanding why this professional woman was so under the spell of Cohen. I was also very disturbed by the constant parent bashing on the part of the author, the unwillingness to move ahead and accept responsibility for her own emotional well being. It took guts to write this book, to lay bare the enormous deception Miller underwent. But it is very disturbing that the author seems to be more forgiving and even nostalgic for the manipulative and destructive influence of Cohen, even after seeing the full face of his deception.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Something still missing.., March 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Day I Went Missing: A True Story (Hardcover)

Fascinating story of how a successful woman is completely brainwashed by her charismatic, morally bankrupt psychiatrist, but I was less moved than I would have thought. There is far too much "poor me" in here. Miller is whiny and it's extremely hard to be sympathetic towards her. Everything she does seems incredibly stupid and Miller never gives us real insight into why she does what she does. She's a comedy writer, but this autobiographical tale is utterly humorless.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed but Fascinating, January 20, 2005

By 

M. Hidalgo "M. Alice Highload" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Day I Went Missing: A True Story (Hardcover)

i agree with both the high praise comments and the hated-it comments. she spends a bit too much time detailing her resume and inserting bits from her comedy act. it really detracts from the narrative in the beginning. even the asides about her family history got to be grating as the book went on, because the real fascinating stuff is with the "Dr. David Cohen".

but i ultimately found the book fascinating and hard to put down when it really got up and going. she holds off on the unveiling of the story till pretty late in the book and for a while i kept glancing at the jacket description of the book to figure out if something bad really WAS going to happen with this therapist.

unfortunately, the ending leaves you with too many questions. it seems strange that there wasn't more of an investigation into this guy... this was released a few years ago -- i need an update.