Talking About Therapy

by Martha W. Chescheir, Donna D. Comarow

Overview

Filled with enlightening first-person accounts, Talking About Therapy tells us why patients sought therapy, what they think of the therapists to whom they entrusted their well-being, and whether the treatment was worth the struggle, the emotional pain, and the money. Through stories that are touching, sometimes shocking, and always candid, readers will learn how patients responded to a wide range of treatment, including: Freudian and neo-Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian analytic psychology, group psychotherapy, Reichian therapy, and newer alternative approaches. Whether portraying their therapeutic experience as a scam or a liberation, or something in-between, the feelings shared by these forthright individuals will be fascinating to patients, potential patients, their families, and mental health professionals.

Talking About Therapy will also help therapists and their clients see beyond the individual context of treatment. The authors have organized their work by the decade in which each interview subject entered treatment (1940s to the present day), and this narrative framework reveals much about the evolution of the mental helth field in the last half century. From the heyday of Freudian psychoanalysis, through the tumult of the Vietnam War, feminism and gay activism, to our current era of street drugs, and the prevalence of anti-depressants, the impact of therapy on the lives of the individuals in this amazing book is conveyed directly and dramatically, with unflinching honesty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897895378
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/30/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)
Lexile:	1000L (what's this?)

About the Author

DONNA D. COMAROW, a clinical social worker and board certified diplomate in her field, lectures on topics from attachment theory to creativity and psychosis, and is working on a book on how people resolve grief.

MARTHA W. CHESCHEIR, a former professor at Catholic University's School of Social Service and at Smith College, teaches advanced level clinicians at the Washington School of Psychiatry and maintains a private practice.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Rita Simon
Introduction
The 1940s: The Heyday of Classical Freudian Analysis
The 1950s: Variations on the Analytic Theme
The 1960s: Improvisations on Treatment Variations
The 1970s: Eclectic Treatments and The Golden Age of Group Therapy
The 1980s: The Centrality of the Relationship
The 1990s: What Does the Patient Need?
Alternative Teatment Forms and the Move Toward Spiritualism
Mental Health: Six Decades of Treatment
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

A. Lee Fritschler

"Comarow and Chescheir had an interesting and unique thought. Why not evaluate psychotherapy through the words and experiences of those who had at some point in their lives undergone treatment? In this lively book, patients tell it like it was and is. This is a fascinating narrative, rich in experience and detail. It is great reading for the layperson and the professional . . . great reading for all of us."

Norman B. Epstein

"Comarow and Chescheir's book is not only fascinating reading, but also an important resource for those who are considering seeking psychotherapy and want to learn about some of the available options. . . . Talking About Therapy can help one be a wiser consumer, in identifying therapists who are dedicated to their clients' best interests."

Bertram S. Brown

"Talking About Therapy is worth talking about. It's even worth writing about, but most significantly, it's worth reading! It's a delightful combination of social history and storytelling that achieves the useful contribution of shedding light on the dark mystery of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. . . . I felt educated and inspired by the work and recommend it to therapists, patients, and all their friends and families, which is all of us."

Judith Viorst

"A wide range of patients talk about a wide range of therapeutic treatments in this rich, fascinating, and wonderfully lucid book about experiences with psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Anyone with an interest in the subject. . . will find this compelling reading."

Warren Poland

"These interviews are fascinating, each a brief glimpse into someone else's life. . . . I think the kaleidoscopic quality of snippets of many lives is certain to be popular to the reading public."

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

"Talking About Therapy is not only fun to read, it should be useful to anyone in therapy or thinking about being in therapy. One thing for sure: credentials mean next to nothing and going by our gut feeling is hard when our guts are in turmoil. Someone ought to build upon this scrupulously honest book and reveal even more of what patients say about their experiences, not what their therapists say they say."

Editorial Reviews

This is a book that will be interesting and useful to both a lay and professional readership. Those persons who are considering entering therapy will find encouragement and guidance from the experiences their predecessors describe in this book. Therapists, on the other hand, will garner from these narratives valuable information about those qualities and abilities that psychotherapy patients most cherish in their therapists.” —American Jourbanal of Psychotherpay

“From the heyday of Freudian psychoanalysis, through the tumult of the Vietnam War, feminism and gay activism, to our current era of street drugs, and the prevelence of anti-depressants, the impact of therapy on the lives of the individuals in this book is conveyed directly and dramatically, with unflinching honesty.” —Adolescence

From the Publisher

Contains 52 narratives by individuals who have been in psychotherapy at some period in their lives. Respondents of all ages describe what therapy did or did not do for them, providing the reader with an overall picture of how therapy can help or not help various people and situations and how it has changed and developed over the past six decades. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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