Customer Reviews

SEMRAD: The Heart of a Therapist

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Elvin Semrad clearly taught with wisdom to spare. The simplicity, presence, and quiet empathy with which this man speaks is all too often missing in the learning process for psychotherapists. Too much focus lands on technique and knowledge; not enough where the action is most required: "being with." Semrad was a master at "being with" - a clinician focused on providing the unspoken structure and confidence in change that allows psychotherapy to actually happen. Long after our prized techniques have fallen by the wayside, years after our clients forget our words and our insights, they will remember what Semrad continued to base the psychotherapeutic encounter upon: one real person in the presence of another real person unwilling to impose answers, fully willing to respect the gradual process of transformation. This can't be taught, but it can be shared. This volume comes as close as a book can to offering that sharing.

I learned about Semrad from a friend of mine who was a Psychiatrist trained under Semrad. Everything he said about him was verified by these authors who also knew him and studied with him. Everyone considering being a therapist should read this book. Anyone who wants to help a fellow human being through their trials and sorrows could benefit from reading this book. Semrad was the master. The authors have captured well his philosophies, his methods, his heart. If you read this you might get an understanding of what it is to "sit with" another person and to hear them out, to empathize. That is everything. Semrad invented 'empathy'.

I have been a trained psychoanalyst for the past 22 years and find this book of Dr. Semrad's thoughts to be utterly incomprehensible. I feel like I am reading a psychoanalytic version of the 1979 film Being There and that Dr. Semrad's followers were as mesmerized as the characters were by Chauncey Gardener. The ideas published in this book are, at best, obvious and self-evident and, at worst, meaningless and insulting to women . I am shocked that this would be published for public consumption.