Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain: Becoming Conscious in an Unconscious World [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

by Elio Frattaroli (Author)
Key Phrases: unconscious scenario, pessimistic child, inner moral conflict, Age of the Brain, Red Beard, Peter Kramer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A decade after Peter Kramer's bestselling Listening to Prozac (also published by Viking) refashioned cultural attitudes and beliefs about mental, emotional or personality disorders and their treatment, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Frattaroli reexamines the "Medical Model" of psychiatry, according to which disturbances such as brain chemistry imbalances are treated solely with psychopharmacology. Lamenting that the brain has replaced the mind or the soul as the object of healing in psychiatry, he offers a clear and comprehensive description of how the alternative "Psychotherapeutic Model" works to bring the unconscious into consciousness, addressing inner conflicts that can't be medicated and ultimately offering deeper and more permanent healing. Using case studies from his own practice, Frattaroli makes a strong argument for the effectiveness of and need for long-term psychotherapy. However, he is careful not to condemn the use of drugs in treating mental and emotional disorders. Heavily influenced by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, with whom he trained, and borrowing from Martin Buber's "I-Thou" vs. "I-It" principle, Frattaroli provides an unusually lucid explanation of Freud's theories of personality, inner conflict, transference and the therapeutic relationship. In view of the current "quick fix" culture and the "greed of the managed care industry," which doesn't usually pay for long-term psychotherapy, Frattaroli calls for an integration of biological and psychoanalytic approaches. His insights are fresh, highly readable, informative, passionate and memorable. (Sept.)Forecast: Ten years in the making, this thoughtful defense of the talking cure could be important and influential for many years to come. A six-city author tour is scheduled for January

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
To his first book, Frattaroli, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and teacher (Univ. of Pennsylvania), brings wide reading in science and the humanities, long experience as a therapist, and remarkable self-analysis. The result is a discursive, challenging, important meditation on the human process of helping others and ourselves through a complex empathic awareness. Frattaroli critiques the ills of scientific materialism, the medical model, and the culture of quick fixes, arguing that the soul needs another kind of healing. In this regard, he both defends and improves upon Freudian psychology with the help of Niels Bohr, Erik Erikson, John Searle, and even Plato and Descartes and arrays it against neurological and pharmaceutical evangelism. Yet while he crusades against a strictly materialist bias, Frattaroli does not engage in New Age soul-flashing, instead respecting brain chemistry, the conservative use of medication, and the tools of humane science. Ultimately, he brings out what is best in the therapeutic procedure. It is only disappointing that Carl Jung gets a mere footnote and that Otto Rank is not mentioned. A major achievement, this is essential for all libraries. E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 454 pages
• ISBN-10: 0670861898
• ASIN: B00008MNVD
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #382,799 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Philosophy for Everyone, February 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain: Becoming Conscious in an Unconscious World (Hardcover)

There is even more to this book than meets the eye. Its focus is on the importance of the psychotherapeutic process in the treatment of mental illnesses. Dr. Frattaroli explains, with great power and passion, why we cannot afford to ignore the soul when someone is experiencing the pain of mental illness. But his philosophy of psychiatry has relevance that goes beyond the treatment of mental illness. Even for those who think they have no interest in how psychiatry is practiced today, the philosophy expressed in this book will still have relevance because, to one degree or another, we all have struggles to deal with and choices to make. Listening to Dr. Frattaroli might help all of us to find our souls again.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A User's Guide to Consciouness, October 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain: Becoming Conscious in an Unconscious World (Hardcover)

This a great book. I loved it ! The author, Dr. Elio Frattaroli articulates with a terrific blend of passion and reason, why modern psychiatry cannnot afford to treat the symptoms of mental illness with medication alone. If psychiatry aims to heal (and Frattaroli insists that it does) then psychiatrists must learn to listen to the soul of a patient as much as they need to understand how to address the physical symptoms of his illness with medication.

But Frattaroli's philosophical perspective and its relevance to the culture as a whole goes well beyond the scope of treating mental illness. It is a book about the science of listening. Really listening. The kind of listening that redeems our humanity and makes us whole. And he has the hard science and philosphy of his arguement to illustrate to the reader why this is so important.
So, while on the face of it, it's a book about the science of psychodynamic psychotherapy and human consciousness. It's in equal part a book about what it means to be human - what makes us human as opposed with simply highly intelligent primates. And what we must do if we are to fully realize what it means to be human.

Simply put: In his book, Frattaroli articulates a lucid and accessible explanation of the science and philosophy that informs modern psychiatry into a book that reads like an urgent wake up call to common sense.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Guide to the Mind and its Depths, October 11, 2001

By	Sydney Pulver, M.D. (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain: Becoming Conscious in an Unconscious World (Hardcover)

Frattaroli has done a tremendous service to those of us who want some help with emotional problems and are faced with a bewildering array of quick cures, miracle medicines, and esoteric therapies. He presents a moving and understandable picture of what it is like to treat and be treated by the only type of therapy that aims to deeply understand the intricacies of the mind: the various psychotherapies which are based on psychoanalysis. Therapies come and therapies go. Medications are raved about and discarded. But psychoanalysis maintains its place as the star in those therapies which care about people, their minds, and their souls. Frattaroli tells why in as eminently clear and readable a book on the topic as I have ever seen.