A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy [Hardcover]

Annie G. Rogers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995

A true-life double healing through therapy is a powerful story of a young psychology intern who collapses during her therapeutic work with a disturbed five-year-old at the point where their stories of childhood abuse overlap. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Rogers pulls us with disarming directness into her treatment, during her psychiatric internship, of a severely traumatized five-year-old boy. The touching appeal of the interactions between them then propel us into the frightening core of Rogers' book--her own rapid decline into psychosis and institutionalization. This was triggered by the child's expression of his horrifying fears and her own initial therapist's rejection of her. Only the ministrations of a second unusually gifted psychoanalyst helped Rogers reassemble her shattered psyche. The multifaceted, two-way healing that occurred between the young intern struggling for emotional truth and the "untreatable" child finally enabled Rogers to recall the searing pain and frustration she experienced and challenge some of modern psychotherapy's basic tenets. Although mostly straightforward enough, Rogers leaves curiously unexamined the aborted relationship with her first, rejecting therapist, which makes her account jarringly incomplete despite its overall mesmerizing force. Whitney Scott

Review

. . . stern and compassionate understanding . . . -- The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670857270
• ISBN-13: 978-0670857272
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,003,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A VOYAGE TO HEALTH & HEALING, November 12, 2000

By 

BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy (Mass Market Paperback)

Dr. Annie Rogers is a psychtherapist in a treament center identified as "Glenwood" in the Chicago area.

This work focusses on Ben, a 5-year-old boy in treatment because of his violent and self abusive behaviors and history of abuse and extreme neglect in infancy.

Ben uses metaphoric language to describe his torment and only alludes to the abuse he suffered in infancy. He revisits this period in his life by playacting "baby" and "baby bear" with Dr. Rogers playing "mama bear" who saves "baby from the forest fire." This no doubt is a reference to when Ben was abandoned in a burning building at age one. He is finally adopted by a loving couple who have sought all types of treatment for this boy who was only recently toilet trained prior to his admission at Glenwood.

During Ben's sessions, the themes of "baby" and "fires" are re-enacted. In one memorable session, Ben arrives in an angel suit to show the doctor his innate goodness.

As they progress further in treatment, Dr. Rogers unearths her own traumatic past. She retreats into silence and is ultimately hospitalized. She is also devastated by the refusal of another professional to maintain contact with her. This professional, identified as "Melanie Sherman" appears to be singularly callous in cutting all ties with Dr. Rogers. Like Ben, Dr. Rogers uses nature themed metaphors to describe her displacement. She identifies with the lone bird, circling above the city, sad-eyed and searching.

It is to her great fortune that she is treated by the gentle, gifted Dr. Blumenthal. Dr. Blumenthal treats her with respect and at no time does he challenge her when she expresses a delusional concept. He takes her seriously and also tries to soften the blow she feels about Melanie's loss. (One wonders if Melanie was really worth it). Dr. Blumenthal helps Dr. Rogers piece her pysche much like a mental quilt; in reassembling her shattered image, she is able to see her abusive mother with clarity instead of in fragmented short steps.

Dr. Blumenthal is truly an angel and a shining, sterling example of humane treatment in therapy. Dr. Rogers, once discharged and back at Glenwood, can use his techniques with Ben.

This is a very powerful book of how parallel the lives of doctor and patient are and how similar their boundaries really were.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finely written, profoundly moving., January 31, 1999

By 

Maggie at [e-mail] (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy (Mass Market Paperback)

I believe this is one of my favorite books of all time. Rogers is an excellent writer -- my words cannot possibly evoke the vibrancy with which she brings her surroundings, her internal process, and her experience of Ben, her five-year-old patient, to life. The book gives a detailed, living-and-breathing picture of working therapeutically with children; at the same time, it shows the necessity of facing, feeling and integrating that which we most fear from our past in order to be fully alive, which is helped beyond measure by having a sensitive therapist to do the healing work with. Rogers' descriptions of Blumenthal, her second therapist, gives us all a standard to hope for, both in terms of the kind of therapist we should all be able to find, and the kind of therapist we should try to be, for those of us in the field.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Therapy is a two way healing process between two humans, September 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy (Hardcover)

Annie not only shows a gift for helping to understand children who have been abused and abandoned, but she also gives us an unflinchingly-honest insider's look at her own therapeutic process of coming to terms with recently resurfaced and repressed memories and pain.

By reading her story, the reader witnesses first hand the fact that psychological healing does not come about by one person (i.e. the Therapist) having superior knowledge over the other (the client). Instead, Annie and her wonderful analyst chart previously unmapped territories together in an effort to reconnect those "shattered pieces" that made up her own life's experiences.

All the DSM categories and pschylabels in the world cannot teach anyone, either therapist or client, about how the act of psychological healing is manifested. Annie shows us instead of telling us, and by witnessing her and her client's process, we get to glimpse something truly profound and not taught in any pscyhology class.