Should You Leave? A Psychiatrist Explores Intimacy and Autonomy -- and the Nature of Advice [Hardcover]

Peter D. Kramer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 1997

The author of the blockbuster best-seller Listening to Prozac explores the interrelated issues of working on a relationship versus ending it, what kind of advice one should accept, and whether contemporary society overvalues independence. 150,000 first printing. Tour."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Uniquely conceived and utterly refreshing, Peter Kramer (Listening to Prozac) breaks the mold of most advice books with Should You Leave? Expect no authoritative voice retreating behind labels or manufactured jargon. Instead, in a series of fictive sessions with imaginary advisees, Kramer illlustrates complex problems; each one lets him give a different style of advice--from Freud's to Ann Lander's. The central question pushes the limits of traditional "silent therapy": can a direct, simple response to any problem of the heart be valuable?

Should You Leave? moves fluidly between discussions of psychological theory and imaginative flights, revealing both a wide body of knowledge and compassion. Kramer's questions, framed with sensitivity and irreverence, challenge our cultural fixation on autonomy and assertiveness. Given these, how can intimacy thrive?

From Library Journal

You've had enough?or so you think. But should you really leave? Kramer, author of the best-selling Listening to Prozac (LJ 5/1/93), examines how people seek an answer to this crucial question of the heart. Along the way he offers great insights into the human condition and helps the reader to understand why we each do what we do about interpersonal relationships on the brink of a breakup. The book is concerned with more than just answering the title's basic question. It also delves into the intricate and complicated issue of psychotherapy and advice itself. Kramer contemplates the role of the therapist as well as the unspoken law against offering advice to his clients. Written with a keen ear for narrative, this nonfiction title reads more like well-written fiction: smooth as silk. Highly recommended for both public library self-help and academic psychology collections.?Marty Dean Evensvold, Magnolia P.L., Tx.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1 edition (September 9, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684813432
• ISBN-13: 978-0684813431
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #581,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Most Thought Provoking Book on Leaving a Relationship, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Should You Leave?: A Psychiatrist Explores Intimacy and Autonomy--and the Nature of Advice (Paperback)

This book provides a lot of information on relationships. How they start, how they work, and forces that tend to tear them apart. In fact, I would rate it as the one of the best books on relationships that I have ever read.

The author provides a survey of many different theories about relationships. This can help the reader form new perspectives about how to view their own situation.

This book really makes you work. If you want to learn and dig deeper, expecially about yourself, this is a great book. If you want simple fast advice, in the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" style, this is not for you.

It seems that the reviewers who did not like this book, must prefer a book that "fixes" their relationship with relatively simple and straight forward advice. I understand the desire to have things that easy, but my experience suggests otherwise.

Kramer's discussion is very intelligent and engaging. Sometimes the style was a bit frustrating, but it was different and probably made the book much more interesting.

A must read for anyone who wants to gain a very broad perspective on relationships in a reasonably short amount of time.

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep, intelligent, funny, useful, challenging, unusual, ..., December 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Should You Leave?: A Psychiatrist Explores Intimacy and Autonomy--and the Nature of Advice (Paperback)

With Beck's Love is Never Enough, it is by far the best book I have read on couples. With so many self-help books centered on finding fault in the other, this one brings a rarer and more usefully challenging perspective. I found it worth reading every year.

Some of the most striking points made by Kramer in this book:
- a promising relationship is one in which, when you change enough, a reciprocal response occurs.
- you need to grow in willingness to be slightly taken advantage of
- you want change ? then stay this time !
- if you want change, change yourself first
- to be committed is to be able to find the bills a mess (or anything else that drives you crazy) and be perfectly fine.
- if you chose somebody with about the same level of differenciation/maturity as you, then you are at the right place
- if you are with somebody easy enough to love and not frankly abusive, you should stay
- learn not to tolerate, but to actually love what you now disdain in your partner (stop being vicious about the unclosed soda cap bottle and learn to find it charming)
- you say your couple or partner do not feel right. Don't you have a problem with your work instead ?
- hidden depression in one or the other partner is the cause of half of the couple problems and breakups. A partner suddently finding all sorts of flaws in the other is a strong hint of depression.
- insist ! Not on leaving, but on staying and having it your way.
- beware of negative projective identification: you unconsciously force the other to behave in ways you fear.
- maturity consists in a large part in resisting to (and resisting the use of) projective identification
- use the current relationship as a greenhouse to develop your relationship skills.
- ethics do matter.
- men are from Illinois and women are from Indiana. They are different, but not in especially confusing ways.
- relationships are exactly like skiing: it does not work as long as you are in the back seat.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth your time..., January 13, 2005

By 

Richard S. Smith (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Should You Leave?: A Psychiatrist Explores Intimacy and Autonomy--and the Nature of Advice (Paperback)

"Should You Leave" is Peter Kramer's contribution to the "Self-Help
and Relationships" genre. There is cleverness working on several
levels as he goes from one anecdotal narrative to the next as so many
other books written by psychologists have done. But Kramer's goal is
not to give advice, it's to make the reader stop and think about what
advice is in the first place. He also builds on the themes he first
developed in "Listening To Prozac" and goes into the problem of how
undiagnosed depression can poison relationships and bring people to
the edge of divorce. The only real criticism you can level at this
book is that it was written because of the success of "Listening To
Prozac" and doesn't really have a strong reason to exist, other than
to provide Kramer with the opportunity to meander though several
themes for no other reason then that they are of interest to him as a
therapist. In the end he pulls off the rather clever trick of writing
a "Psychological Advice Book" that's a treatise on the nature of
psychology and of advice, but no real advice is provided, just a lot of
shrewd observations and food for thought. Do you think that's just a
little too clever? If so then you can skip this book, but if you're
still interested, good for you because you're in for a treat. This
book has better and more insightful psychological writing then you're
likely to find in any other dozen books on the subject. I have no
trouble recommending it.