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The Good Psychologist: A Novel

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THE GOOD PSYCHOLOGIST is the debut novel from Noam Shpancer and shows no signs of being a first novel. This book is written with intelligence, insight, passion and a great sense of humanity. The book is being described as a suspense novel and this can be very misleading. It is in no way a thriller or mere suspense novel. If someone picks it up to read expecting this they will be in for a shock. I certainly hope the word gets spread what this novel really is for it will then attract a whole difference audience who will appreciate this fine work.

This novel is a deep character study. The entire novel is told through the perspective of the main character who is known as only the unnamed psychologist. He lives his life with his practice as well as teaching a night class. As we get to know the good doctor his exlover, also his best friend, announces she is moving. He gets a new and intriguing patient who is a stripper. And one of his students proves to be a troubled case. The story is told through lectures, therapy sessions and pure thoughts as we are in the mind of the psychologist throughout. The drama and mystery that may exist is what one would get by being fully in the thought process of any person. Our psychologist is intelligent, caring and fully human. He reflects on his own imperfections and most importantly tries to be the best he can be while living life. This is a very human novel and was a very daring attempt by the author. For any author such a premise would be either a hit or miss. And here it is a true hit. The way the story brings therapy sessions, lectures and thoughts together merely brings us that much closer into the mind of the psychologist.

The book is in no way meant to be a high praise of the profession or a dig at it either. Our psychologist takes his job seriously and tries sincerely to help others. But the most important part of him is his humanity. What the novel shows is that all people are very complex and that there is much more to each of us deep inside. The journey we go on with the psychologist will have the reader very reflective on their own passions, desires actions and pursuits of life. Getting to know this character is time well spent and this novel is a hugely succesful debut from Noam Shpancer. This is a very intelligent piece of literature that I highly recommend.

How many books have been written about the psych practitioner who needs to see a psych practitioner? This is another where the real subject of the book is something other than what we are expecting. The Product Description above gives you plenty of the set up to all this; even if it is overly exuberant.

As the author involves us in his (protagonist's) treatment of his patient and his class, we soon sense there are few surprises in store for us. The other plot element of the psychologist and Nina, the mother of their child, starts enjoyably but becomes tedious.

The way too I'm-so-with-it psychologist gets way too clinical and Socratic and the flow of the book becomes uneven. That, coupled with the author's affectation of not setting off dialog with proper punctuation, makes the book less reader friendly than it could (easily) have been. A gimmick without a good reason is too often more clever to the writer than the reader.

Using a treatise on therapy (therapy disguised as treatise?), the author enrolls us in the psychologist's class to read Shpancer's lecture notes. The class, the students and the student's questions and reactions are so stereotyped that I wanted to cringe - and the longer chapters were set in the classroom.

The book was somewhat interesting but too pat and self-serving. There is too much pontificating and too little story. Early on it became apparent the entire book is about the author's take on psychotherapy - not the supposed story line and characters. The story and the reader suffer because of that. Hopefully, Shpancer will write himself out of his next book.

The The Good Psychologist: A Novel is a deeply moving story told from the point-of-view of a psychologist who conducts therapy for people who experience anxiety and panic attacks. He also teaches a college course - an activity that he clearly enjoys. Noam Shpancer brings his characters to life and invites us into the psychologist's life and the life of his "4:00" patient - a stripper who experiences such acute panic that she can no longer perform on stage. We discover, through this artful storytelling, the roots of the stripper's condition.

Interspersed with chapters about therapy sessions, we are given the treat of the narrator's viewpoint as a psychology professor at a local university teaching a night class to an interesting assortment of students. As a professor, he enjoys delight in teaching and is relaxed about it and says that he enjoys it because he is older now and "no longer courts their favor." (32) The writer illustrates the professor's lectures with very true-to-life verbage that shows a very high level of expertise - we learn at the end of the book that the writer is a professor and a therapist. He speaks from a high level of experience that brings the narrative to life.

We also experience the pain the psychologist experiences at having a daughter he never gets to see - conceived during an affair with a married colleague, the child has no idea that he is actually her father. He lives a solitary life and begins to experience a midlife bout of sorrow and loneliness that he must find a way to climb out of on his own.

We never learn the name of the protagonist of this brilliant novel. Only a few of the characters are even named. Yet, the narrative doesn't suffer - we can still see, feel and experience this story on an intimate level. This novel is well-crafted and is a beautiful story that will touch your heart long after turning the last page.

I love books about therapists. I'm thinking Irvin Yalom's Lying on the Couch and Hanif Kureishi's Something to Tell You--both novels are stories of therapists who have oodles of problems of their own. Noam Shpancer's The Good Psychologist is the story of a therapist who specializes in anxiety disorders. The novel goes back and forth between the therapist's sterile lonely existence (he's involved, well sort of, with a married woman), the night classes he teaches, and the sessions with a stripper.

In spite of the fact that readers are privvy to the therapy sessions and also to the therapist's private life, the novel remains somewhat shallow on all levels. The weakest sections of the book dealt with the night class taught by the therapist whose preachy classroom rhetoric was rather boring. The sessions with the stripper led to the inevitable night at the stripclub. The therapist's personal life, which was the most interesting section of the book, still remained remarkably surface and lacked much introspection. The characters for the most part are rather two-dimensional rather than fully drawn, and they seem to be stereotypes more than anything else.

This is an accessible, well-edited novel about a psychologist who teaches undergraduates and maintains a private practice using cognitive or behavior techniques to treat patients with anxiety disorders. Like the stripper patient who is unable to perform any longer, the psychologist has a biological daughter whom he does not parent.

As he interacts with the stripper, we get glimpses of his own solitary life and his obsession with the married lover, another psychologist, with whom he fathered the child. We also learn snippets from the history and theories of psychology as he lectures his students.

My problem with the book was in knowing that the nameless narrator, the good psychologist (you learn what this means from his lectures), is a perfect match-up for the author. While I assume, with no evidence, the book is not entirely autobiographical, this gives him an enormous stake in controlling the narrative. All the patients make progress; most of his students pay attention to and internalize his witty lectures.

Aside from the occasional check-in with his former lover, this "good" psychologist does not engage in supervision or interact with his peers. He's so busy trying not to judge the stripper that it doesn't occur to him that she might be under violent threat early on when she skips sessions. And then there are the put-downs of religious fundamentalists (Muslim and Christian, although he does better with the Christian) and his inability to discern one nationality of Asian from another. I found it interesting that someone not reared in this country would casually refer to a cabbie's accent as "foreign."

I'd say the good psychologist has some work to do.

I felt for the unnamed "good psychologist" in this remarkable debut novel. He is someone who cares about his clients and students, as well as pine for his ex-lover and the daughter he doesn't know.

There is a great deal of empathy and compassion in him, as well as loneliness and turmoil. We are treated to his sessions with Tiffany, a stripper who is suddenly unable to perform, the night classes he teaches at a local university and his diverse students, and his conversations with his Nina, his married ex-lover. It is the chapters focusing on his interaction with his students that I personally found the most compelling. I find that these chapters in particular really stand out.

My only real complaint with this book s the lack of quotation marks. For the most part this was not a problem, but there were a few instances when the flow of the story was interrupted for me because I did not immediately recognize something as dialog, but this really does not take anything away from this incredible book.

The Good Psychologist is a story with very few characters, not a lot of action, but a story that leaves the reader with plenty to think about.

The unnamed, "good psychologist" comes across as a lonely man. He see patients at the Center for Anxiety Disorders, teaches a class at a local college, plays basketball with a group of guys, and was involved in a long distance relationship with Nina, a former colleague, a married woman, with a husband who is very ill. We learn that Nina and the unnamed psychologist had a child together, but he had promised Nina that he would stay out of her life. They email, exchange photos, meet on occassion, but are in the process of ending their relationship. He longs to see his daughter Billie.

The story unfolds with a unnamed psychologist sitting in a small office where he works at the Center for Anxiety Disorders. He has to adjust his schedule to stay late for a 4 p.m. appointment, to accomodate a new patient. The patient is Tiffany, an exotic dancer who has suddenly developed panic attacks when she has to strip on stage. As the therapy session continues with subsequent visits the reader learns that Tiffany also has a daughter who does not live with her, and as Tiffany shares her private life and longings, the reader is able to see a similarity between the emotions of the psychologist and Tiffany.

Throughout the short novel, the reader gets the feel for the verbal exchanges that take place between patient and therapist during their sessions. There are also exchanges between the psychologist and the students in his night class, but we never get to know them as intimately as we do Tiffany.

"Panic attacks are a common phenonmenon; very unpleasant, as you know,but not dangerous. Nobody dies of a panic attack."

"I felt like I was dying. I was certain I was gone....."

"People who are anxious feel out of control, but they are not.
It is important to understand this".

The Good Psychologist is a very introspective story, a deep character study that gets inside the heads of all of the primary characters. It's a story where the lines between patient and therapist can sometimes appear blurred, and in the end the lives of not only the patient, but of the psychologist, as well are closely examined.

The novel was very different, but enjoyable. In no way was it a suspense thriller as I read in one review. The fact that the author, in real life is a therapist and a teacher at a local college, makes me think that much of this novel might be reflective of some real life experiences. Regardless, I enjoyed the novel, and the way it made me think and analyze the give and take between therapist and patient. RECOMMENDED.

There are so many small phrases woven through the pages that are really profound--those gems can give you clarity and understanding into your own life and also help you help those people who are in your life.

It was written as a novel, centered around "the Good Psychologist". You saw glimpses into sessions with clients, glimpses into his private life, and glimpses into the wisdom he would try to impart to the students he was teaching. It doesn't read like a typical novel as it feels that it is accurate and true and the gems and glimpses of wisdom are far better than what i would consider you would find in a typical novel.

You find yourself being endeared by all the characters. You enjoy their "good" side, and embrace their "shadow" side. You root for them to have the courage to go deeper, to explore more. And in the process, perhaps you can even become a little less judgmental of yourself and others as we all have "good" sides and all have "shadow" sides.

I would highly encourage everyone to read this book. AND, i would encourage any student who is studying to be a therapist/counselor/psychologist, that this is a MUST READ. and then a MUST REREAD.

This novel was a lovely and rare experience, a work that explores internal and external worlds, reshaping thoughts and language to embrace a range of human conditions. At the heart of it is the psychologist- he never has a name- who becomes recognizable through his lectures to a college class and his work with patients who suffer from anxiety disorders. A thoughtful, erudite man, the psychologist has chosen a moral dilemma in his own life that brings both great joy and grief. And as he confronts his life choices, he continues his work, explaining theory in very human terms in his class, interacting with various students and working with patients, in particular a young exotic dancer who has been unable to go back on stage since the onset of anxiety.

While this story is instinctive on many levels, it is profoundly touching, the measured cadence of one man's life as he attempts to navigate within his chosen profession, examining, reflecting, sorting. There is a kind of quietude that is comforting, the potential for tragedy only a shadow at the edges, fear in manageable bites. Maybe you have to arrive at the end of the story to understand it, but the journey is well worth the effort. Luan Gaines/2010.

The unnamed protagonist of this well-written, well-paced novel is a psychologist who teaches an evening course as a nearby university. He also plays basketball with a group of men and he carries on a long distance affair with another psychologist.

The book focuses on a puzzling client - a stripper whose anxiety keeps her from earning her livelihood as a dancer. The psychologist gives her assignments that seemed odd to this reader, but that may be appropriate to someone who knows more about therapy.

The psychologist comes to life in the classroom, where he shares insights about therapy with a small group of students identified only by first names. He seems to like this part of his life more than any other, as he gets more involved in his students than most adjunct professors would be. A few of them ultimately tell him about challenges in their personal lives.

As the book goes on, the psychologist steps out of his office. On one level he seems to be trying to fill the emptiness in his own life with the experiences of his students and clients. Yet nothing much happens outside some conversations and the psychologist's own thoughts. I admire the author's skill in maintaining attention without action.

The book jacket seemed to suggest a suspenseful novel. I was expecting something like the Kate Atkinson novels but this one is more like Ian McEwan's Solar, with most action taking place inside the character's head.

I wish I'd read this book with my former book club. It's an excellent springboard for dicussion and argument.