Obsession: The Bizarre Relationship Between a Prominent Harvard Psychiatrist and Her Suicidal Patient - Hardcover

Gary S. Chafetz; Morris S. Chafetz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517595583 ISBN 13: 9780517595589

Publisher: Crown, 1994

Synopsis

Explores the dangers of a society that values titillation over truth in the story of Harvard psychiatrist Margaret Bean-Bayog, who was accused of seducing a suicidal patient, Paul Lozano, who later died of a self-administered cocaine overdose. Tour.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A Boston Globe reporter's on-the-spot account of the media's--and the public's--rush to judgment when Harvard psychiatrist Margaret Bean-Bayog was suspected of seducing a young male patient and driving him to suicide. A preface explains that this first-person narrative was written by Gary, the younger Chafetz, who covered the story for the Globe, while Morris, his psychiatrist father, served as consultant and reviewer. Assigned to the story under enormous deadline pressures, Chafetz was initially certain of Bean-Bayog's guilt. With time to study the case more carefully, he developed doubts and came to believe that the allegations against her could not be proved in court. Whether his assessment is accurate cannot be known, for Bean-Bayog avoided a hearing before the state medical board by resigning her medical license, and she made an out-of-court settlement in the malpractice suit brought by the patient's family. Chafetz criticizes the interpretation of Bean- Bayog's case notes made by the plaintiff's lawyer, reviews various other documents, interviews the patient's sister and some of the lawyers involved, and gives cursory attention to the issues of psychiatric practice raised by the case. Bean-Bayog granted him a number of interviews, and these are mostly reported as question-and-answer sessions in separate chapters rather than being woven into the narrative. Letting Bean-Bayog explain herself in her own words presents her as the victim in the case, but ultimately doubts about her professionalism remain. An epilogue containing some irrelevant and unflattering material about the patient's family and a compassionate glimpse of Bean- Bayog attempting to get on with her life reveals clearly where Chafetz's sympathies lie. Largely superficial reporting that has the feeling of a pastiche hastily assembled to meet a deadline. (For a more serious examination of the case, see McNamara: Breakdown, below.) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

Gary Chafetz and McNamara, both journalists for the Boston Globe, have written accounts of a notorious malpractice suit that made national headlines in 1992. The family of Paul Lozano, a Mexican American who attended Harvard Medical School, alleges that psychiatrist Margaret Bean-Bayog led the troubled Lozano into a state of infantile dependency-and, ultimately, suicide-by using unorthodox psychoanalytic "regressive therapy." The Chafetzes' uneven narrative begins with an account of the first newscast aired in the wake of Lozano's death. Gary Chafetz, who describes sifting through public records and seeking interviews with principal characters, had little success until he gained interviews with Bean-Bayog. Many chapters consist solely of quotes from documents, press releases, and interviews interspersed with Gary's own brief comments or the occasional opinions of Morris, his psychiatrist father. The Chafetzes conclude that Bean-Bayog was manipulated by Lozano and betrayed by Boston's academic and psychiatric communities. In Breakdown, McNamara covers the suicide and its aftermath by interviewing Lozano's family and the colleagues and friends of Bean-Bayog. Examining complicated issues of transference, ethics, and malpractice, she argues-contrary to the Chafetzes-that the press and medical profession protected Bean-Bayog and vilified Lozano. If a choice must be made between these two titles, pick McNamara's account for its comprehensiveness. The titillating subject matter, though, will surely stir public interest, and most public libraries would do well to purchase both accounts.
Lucille Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0517595583
• ISBN 13: 9780517595589
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 365