Letters to a Young Therapist - Softcover

Pipher, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465039685 ISBN 13: 9780465039685

Publisher: Basic Books, 2016

Synopsis

From "one of America's best-known psychologists" (Chicago Tribune) and the bestselling author of Women Rowing North and Reviving Ophelia, an essential and inspiring book for therapists and anyone seeking to live a good life
Mary Pipher's groundbreaking investigation of America's "girl-poisoning culture," Reviving Ophelia, established its author as one of the nation's foremost authorities on family issues. In Letters to a Young Therapist, Pipher shares what she has learned in thirty years of clinical practice, helping warring families, alienated adolescents, and harried professionals restore peace and beauty to their lives. Through an exhilarating mix of storytelling and sharp-eyed observation, Pipher reveals her refreshingly inventive approach to therapy-fiercely optimistic, free of dogma or psychobabble, and laced with generous warmth and practical common sense. Whether she's recommending daily swims for a sluggish teenager, encouraging a timid husband to become bolder, or simply bearing witness to a bereaved parent's sorrow, Pipher's compassion and insight shine from every page.
With a preface by the author addressing recent changes in therapy and the surprising challenges of the digital age, Letters to a Young Therapist is a powerfully engaging guide to living a healthy life.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary Pipher is the author of numerous books, including the bestsellers Women Rowing North, The Shelter of Each Other, Another Country, and the landmark Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, which spent 154 weeks of the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into nineteen languages. Pipher has traveled all over the world lecturing to students, health-care professionals, and community groups. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Most people find talking to God more satisfying than talking to Freud," says Pipher, whether they believe in God or not. For fans of the bestselling Reviving Ophelia, such perfectly pitched, patient-centered observations will seem familiar and most welcome; for first-timers, Pipher invites readers: "Make some peach tea and find a cat for your lap. Let's visit." Even the most cynical psych snob will find that visit-a series of seasonally themed letters to a fictional graduate student describing psychotherapy from the inside out-refreshing, informative and insightful. In the brief time it takes to read this slim volume, the rhythms of blather and breakthrough, resistance and revelation come through clearly. Pipher also talks readers into becoming their own therapists, and good ones at that; her epistolary persona is one of a sympathetic woman but not a fuzzy emotional thinker. She admits "All families are a little crazy, but that's because all humans are a little crazy" and "Some therapy is just plain plodding," but she also includes many anecdotes that illuminate how a well-crafted metaphor, moment of quiet or carefully timed suggestion can change a life forever. Her view of therapists as storytellers is borne out in direct, engaging prose and succinct observation. To take just one example, Pipher notes that women see apologizing as saying, "I am sorry I hurt your feelings or caused you pain." Men see it as "I am eating shit." That's Mars and Venus in two sentences, and there's plenty more. The well-known perils of the profession emerge freshly, but also its profound rewards.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0465039685
• ISBN 13: 9780465039685
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 219