Amazon.com Review
"It's painful to listen to yourself, at least in the beginning, but the alternative is endless suffering," says Dr. Lathon (a pseudonym), the therapist of this group. This book is not a self-help text, says author Paul Solotaroff, but a "work of narrative journalism" documenting six people living through a year of group therapy. The people and their problems are real, but their identities are disguised to protect their anonymity. Solotaroff, who was a participant in an earlier group with Lathon, is a creative, accomplished writer who brings the people to life visually as well as orally. Lathon "looked like a man with his own Learjet, or the maitre d' at a restaurant you couldn't afford." You get to know Lathon's humor, insights, and commentary on his patients. His number-one rule is hard work; next is fearless honesty. The six group members are intriguing, witty, dramatic, and in pain--like characters in an Edward Albee play. Their troubles run the gamut: substance abuse, infidelity, embezzlement, emotional abuse, loneliness, unfinished business with parents. If you've been wondering how group therapy works and what you might learn about yourself, you'll get plenty of insights. If you just like to eavesdrop on other people baring their souls of troubled, intimate details, you'll get that here, too.
--Joan Price
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In this perceptive account of how a group of strangers came together over the course of a year to regain a sense of equilibrium in their fast-track lives, journalist Solotaroff provides an inside look at the "talking cure." The occasionally combustible cast of six patients, afflicted with a laundry list of private demons, childhood traumas, addictions and phobias, duel with one another and with their volatile group leader, psychopharmacologist Charles Lathon. (According to the agreement hammered out between Solotaroff and Lathon, who reluctantly allowed the author to monitor the meetings, verbatim exchanges between the group members appear in the book, though names and identifying information have been altered.) The eclectic group includes an emotionally withdrawn former model, an obnoxious Wall Street whiz with a yen for coke, an overwhelmed children's rights activist in a bitter divorce fight, a boozed-out rock musician, a wimpy accountant and a slumping Broadway producer with an embezzlement rap haunting his comeback. Lathon's approach, based on "rational optimism," spurred the group members to challenge their self-imposed barriers and to accept the possibility of eventually mastering their frantic lives. Pulling back with an impassive eye, Solotaroff lets the reader experience the highly charged exchanges between these damaged soulsAand their well-earned epiphanies. Raw and surprisingly candid, these are real individuals fighting some of life's harshest battles; not everyone survives emotionally to tell the tale. The wealth of surprises at the book's conclusion will keep readers riveted up to the last page. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
