A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)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.

Click Here to see more reviews about: A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy

Click here for more information about A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy

Read More...

Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)As a reviewer previously noted, there really isn't anything new here. But like a chef who takes ingredients we are well familiar with and combines them to give us a new experience, so too does Maxwell. There are the little gimmicks--calling people warm and cool, talking about the house like a body when he could just say he's writing about attending to repairs (bones), arranging and organizing the stuff in your space (breath), figuring out the functions of each room (head) and decorating (heart). But this is not a meal of last night's leftovers. Instead it is packaged into another gimmick: the eight week cure. There's a lot to do in your eight weeks: and the work seems unbalanced. It starts out slowly (throwing out one thing, making lists) and ends slowly (preparing for a party) but in the middle there's almost an impossible amount of things to do. But it's all laid out. There are worksheets and practical tips to begin. Maxwell has taken all the steps to transforming a living space and laid them all out sequentially. This book is about more than just fixing up your place however: Maxwell aims to change and enrich your experience of your home. And that's the spice that makes the book worth consuming.
This book is also something else. It's a primer for a web site and blog. It sets out the vocabulary and explains the aims of hundreds of people who have already participated in the first on-line cure. Like Marla Cilley's Sink Reflections, the book functions as a portal to the collective on-line experience. There are no lush photographs in the book.They are on the web site.
More than anything, though, Maxwell writes his prose well and in such a way that one feels inspired to tackle transforming one's home and experience in it. I'm not in a small apartment in the city---but a small house in a city whose burbs are ever expanding outwards. I don't need to start cooking at home--as he recommends--but taking those wonderful morning baths he advocates. It'll be a challenge to implement the cure for my home and it will take longer than eight weeks. Nonetheless, he has inspired me to do all he counsels and for that reason I recommend the book.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure

Click here for more information about Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure

Read More...

Lying on the Couch: A Novel Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This "novel" by Dr. Yalom is a true masterpiece. After having read his other popular books, I hesitated reading a "novel" , but what an amazing surprise... This work is really integrated, has great unity as far as structure goes and the subject area in which Dr.Yalom truly excells is really informative for therapists, analysts as well as patients. It gives insight not into just multiple relationships among doctors and patients but also among therapists themselves - patients in their relationships with their relatives and friends. It is an excellent guide to insight, analysis and problem-solving techniques as well as ethics, honesty and humanity. It should be required reading for courses and seminars that train analysts, therapists as well as counsellors and ultimately patients and friends and relatives of patients in therapy. Read this book -- honestly!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Lying on the Couch: A Novel

Click here for more information about Lying on the Couch: A Novel

Read More...

Broken for You Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)My wife read this book in one gulp, so to speak, and said, 'You must read this. You may find it a little too "girly," but I think you'll really like it anyhow.' Well, she was certainly right about my liking it. And it wasn't too 'girly,' either; although the main characters are women, the interactions, the plot twists, the quirkiness of all the characters, and the unexpectedness of their inner lives made it all fascinating to me.
Stephanie Kallos, a first-time novelist, has a delightful sense of humor and a real facility with words. Although the main arc of the plot winds up being fairly predictable (and, I might add, extremely satisfying), there are enough unexpected incidents and revelations along the way to make this trip very enjoyable. And her characters are all credible people with vivid inner lives, past histories, present desires and hesitations. All are wounded in some way, but none is a victim in the usual sense. And underlying all this is a strong current of the will to survive and even triumph, especially in the context of a purpose-created community of eccentrics.
It would be a shame if this book is overlooked because it is by a new novelist whose name doesn't ring a bell. If Kallos keeps writing, her name WILL become much better known.
Recommended.
Scott Morrison

Click Here to see more reviews about: Broken for You

Click here for more information about Broken for You

Read More...