Customer Reviews

Inside Therapy: Illuminating Writings About Therapists, Patients, and Psychotherapy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What can I add to the praise listed below? This book really is as good as they say. Superbly chosen excerpts that are well written and provide a thoughtful, amazing window into the inner workings (and chaos) of the patient's and therapist's minds--and how their relationship can bring healing and tremendous insight into our lives.

Never before have I read such a series of offensive arrogance about psychotherapy. How nice for these psychologists and psychiatrists to receive cases in which they have no need to truly care about their client or their client's emotional pain but instead be able to know what is best for their client, be incredibly insightful and heal their client with their "wisdom." (All neatly summed up in an essay or excerpt with a Happily Ever After Ending.)

The most offensive essay (and believe me, it was hard to pick just one. Leston Havens' "Freud's Invention" was runner up. "Therapy even changes your appearance!") was Herbert S. Strean's "Sometimes I Feel Like A Dirty Old Man: The Woman Who Tried to Seduce Me." Strean repeatedly pats himself on the back about how well-analyzed he is and how this woman's tricks will never work with him! I read it with borderline nausea--realizing that this man in no way had any sort of connection with the woman in the room, he was too busy ruminating on how SHE affected him. Her pain, his effect on her, was a horrible pathology, but his pathologies (self-centered arrogance, narcissism)had no effect on him or her because he (allegedly) knew about them! If this woman actually did experience healing it was very probably in spite of her analyst, not because of him.

This is an outdated and frustrating overview of psychology, and of the therapist/client relationship. Basically the editor has collected every client's worst fear about therapy. According to this collection the client is not a person to be cared about with a unique set of hopes and fears and histories. NO, each client is a "hysteric", a "borderline", a "neurotic". Each client is fraught and ready and ripe for transference, each pathology pursued with bloodhound zeal and little realization that most people who are seeking help, do in fact just want to get better. The collection copyright is 1998 and I feel that might be a typo of about 40 years because Freud's stench rises from each page like fresh fish left on the counter overnight.

The three exceptions in the book are Irvin Yalom's prologue, the excerpt from his novel "Nietzsche Wept" and his excerpt from "Love's Executioner." Yalom's caring for his clients, his appreciation of their uniqueness, shines through every word of his prose and he is a good enough writer that his work is quite accessible to even non-readers. Yalom is the only reason I gave this book two stars.

I would suggest you buy any of Yalom's works or "In Session" by Deborah Lott instead of this. Reading "Inside Therapy" might make you crazy.

I found this book to be enlightening and enjoyable. The reader is allowed a rare insight into the psychotherapist's feelings and personal struggles when dealing with patients. In addition, it makes an obvious point to the reader that psychotherapists are human. Although some of the excerpts do border on arrogant, I would still recommend this book to anyone who is considering going into the field of psychotherapy.

Whether you are a therapist or client, you are sure to find these carefully chosen excerpts enlightening and amusing. The volume Ms. Rabinowitz has woven from such disparate strands is one of the best I have ever read. Each excerpt is strong enough to stand alone. Many of the authors were new to me when I read Inside Therapy, but not any more. I've looked for the original works, and been glad to meet such fine thinkers.

Samuel Shem's excerpt alone is worth the price of the book. If you are not howling with laughter over his witty pokes at Freudian analysis... well, you might want to give more serious consideration to the role of therapy in your life.

This is an excellent, instructive narrative about the healing powers of psychotherapy.