The Therapist's Emotional Survival: Dealing with the Pain of Exploring Trauma [Hardcover]

Stuart D. Perlman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0765701758 | ISBN-13: 978-0765701756 | Publication Date: December 1, 1998

This book explores the private thoughts of the therapist in response to the patient's inner expressions and how each affects the other over the course of treatment. Perlman documents his own journey of having treated trauma. and sexually abused patients over many years. He details the issues the therapist needs to deal with, the emotional. strain, how the therapist's own traumas and history shape his behavior and intrude into the therapeutic process, and how he and others he has supervised, have come to manage this difficult process and maintain emotional health. Perlman illustrates this with powerful revealing of his thoughts, dreams, memories, history, personal psychotherapy, and emotional reactions. From this the author has developed a model of treatment that maximizes the patient's growth, and helps therapists understand treatment and develop more fully as people as well. This human and caring approach allows patients and therapists to open up to deeper experience within themselves and promotes healing in both.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Therapist's Emotional Survival: Dealing with the Pain of Exploring Trauma is a unique study of the challenging and complex interplay between the personalities of the therapist and patient in working through trauma and sexual abuse. It accurately and authentically depicts the lived experience of both participants in this difficult, often harrowing journey, backed up by dramatic clinical illustrations. The self-analytic sections include powerful self-revelations of a kind one almost never sees in clinical writing. Perlman's book will be of value and interest to a wide audience, from new therapists to seasoned analysts. No other book of which I am aware gives as detailed a picture of what the treatment of these patients is like. (George Atwood )

In The Therapist's Emotional Survival: Dealing with the Pain of Exploring Trauma, Stuart D. Perlman, a therapist and psychoanalyst with wide experience in treating the victims of sexual abuse and other forms of trauma, takes the reader on a journey into the emotional heart of this most difficult work. Drawing on extensive case material, Dr. Perlman reveals the special hardships, personal and emotional, that confront the therapist; he is honest and courageous in using his own reactions to illustrate these difficulties in ways that will be most helpful to all - mental health professionals and others - who deal with this population. While there are many recent books dealing with this topic, I know of none that do so with the depth and honesty of this one. (Louis Breger )

About the Author

Stuart D. Perlman, Ph.D., is in private practice in West Los Angeles, and a training analyst and member of the Board of Directors at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Dr. Perlman received Ph.D.s from UCLA in Clinical Psychology, and in Psychoanalysis at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute, and was faculty at both. Dr. Perlman is widely published on the topics of trauma and sexual abuse, domestic violence, countertransference, and managing stress.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 254 pages
• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc. (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765701758
• ISBN-13: 978-0765701756
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #551,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Title misleading, April 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Therapist's Emotional Survival: Dealing with the Pain of Exploring Trauma (Hardcover)

Interesting book on the treatment of sexual abuse victims. However, the title is extremely misleading. The book actually only has 32 pages that deal with "the emotional survival of therapists" in total. Therefore, I would not recommend this book, definately overpriced, unless you understand you are getting one therapist's experiences of treating sexual abuse victims. If that is the topic your looking for, then it's a decent read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the better books that I have read lately, July 1, 2003

By 

Harry Drasin (Pacific Palisades, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Therapist's Emotional Survival: Dealing with the Pain of Exploring Trauma (Hardcover)

To me, the title reasonably reflects the content of the book. I can recommend this book to all but the most experienced therapists who deal with survivors of trauma or sexual abuse. I recognized much of what he said in my own experience of working with patients, and his comments on the therapist's feelings are extremely helpful.