The Patient Who Cured His Therapist: And Other Tales of Therapy - Softcover

Siegel, Stanley; Lowe, Ed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452270081 ISBN 13: 9780452270084

Publisher: Plume, 1993

Synopsis

Siegel's thought-provoking, compassionate look at therapists and the patients they try to cure demonstrates his conviction that therapy is a two-way street where the therapist has as much to learn as the patient--and real healing is possible only when the healer truly respects his patients.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Revisionist forays into family therapy, by therapist Siegel and Newsday columnist Lowe. The main message in the dozen-or-so cases presented here is that the patient is always right and that the therapist (or the person urging the patient into therapy) creates resistance by hoping to impose change and by refusing to acknowledge the positive values in what seems a negative situation. Many of the cases become resolved as patients see the wisdom of their illnesses: If they wish to change, that's up to them. One woman's shoplifting lands her in weekend detention for a month and threatens much worse. Her father, it happens, is in and out of psychiatric institutions. She supports the family, has three children (one with Down's syndrome), and is burdened with boundless hardship. Siegel points out to her that only her father has found a way out of the family bind, by vacationing in asylums, and that her shoplifting, which helps to support the family, is a positive act--despite the bad spin put on it by other therapists. The author restores her by not trying to change her. In another case, a richly loving couple has not had sex in six years of marriage. Siegel reflects that this is absolutely marvelous for them and, given their family backgrounds, assures their perfect marriage, with the wife as the perfect mother the husband has never known and he as the perfect, adoring son. Sex for them would be incestuous (although they later have a child). In the title story, a patient reverses roles with his therapist, who finds out that she's as bad as he is. And in another case, an AIDS patient cannot die until he relieves his lover of guilt about not having attended his mother's funeral. Much to chew on as conventional therapy is stood on its head, though no doubt many therapists will sneer nervously at Siegel's ``dizzy'' ideas. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

Those seeking therapy to change behaviors that are traditionally thought to be maladaptive (e.g., extreme aloofness, celibacy in marriage) should be praised rather than thwarted for finding a creative way to cope with difficult life circumstances, says Siegel, director of education at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy in New York, and Lowe, author of the New York Newsday column "Fathering." Therapists, the authors also believe, can learn much about themselves when confronted with such behaviors. In the title story, a female therapist seeks Siegel's intervention when she is unable to break down an impenetrable wall of reserve in a male client. The therapist soon realizes that her intense need to change him mirrors her attempts to change her unresponsive father. Siegel contends that his unorthodox method of seeing dysfunctional behavior as an asset has helped when other therapies have failed. While general readers may enjoy and even benefit from these humorous, compassionate accounts, this title may better serve professional counselors or those interested in new or experimental modes of therapy. Purchase for such a demand.
- Linda S. Greene, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0452270081
• ISBN 13: 9780452270084
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224