The Thief of Happiness: The Story of an Extraordinary Psychotherapy - Hardcover

Friedman, Bonnie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807072427 ISBN 13: 9780807072424

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 2002

Synopsis

"Compulsively readable."

Francine Prose, O: The Oprah Magazine

The Thief of Happiness is the story of a seven year therapy between the author and the mysterious Dr. Sing—a therapy that was part cult of two, part enchantment, and part love story. In an age when the great and subtle gifts of therapy are downplayed in favor of psychopharmacology, Friedman has written the most detailed and vivid portrayal yet of what actually goes on between therapist and patient.

"[S]trangely profound. . . . [an author] with a great eye for detail."
—Joshua Wolf Shenk, The Washington Post

"[E]xcellent in the way H.D.'s [Tribute to Freud] is: it illuminates the intricate, murky relationship between therapy and real life . . . Friedman is at her best when relaying the delicately nuanced exchanges that occur between the patient and therapist. . . . The book could, like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, develop a cult following."
—Publishers Weekly

"The memoir is sometimes dismissed as a genre for the self-absorbed and self-pitying, yet The Thief of Happiness is neither. . . . An impressive accomplishment and a fine addition to the existing literature on therapy."
—Carmela Ciuraru, Forward

About this title

About the Author

Bonnie Friedman is widely known as a "writer's writer." Her Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life was on the Village Voice best-seller list in 1994. Her work is anthologized in many writing textbooks and collections like The Best Writing on Writing. It has also appeared in The New York Times, Self, Redbook, and Ladies' Home Journal. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

From Publishers Weekly

Transference that alchemy of the psychotherapy session, with all its drama and inscrutability is the subject of Friedman's engrossing second book. Here, the author of Writing Past Dark (about the emotional aspects of the writing process) examines in minute detail her treatment with Dr. Harriet Sing (a pseudonym). Like the poet H.D. (Tribute to Freud), Friedman entered therapy for writer's block. After two weeks, she found herself writing her first book. As a result, she identified Sing as the source of her inspiration, and an intense infatuation resulted: "Little mattered now beside Harriet Sing. Everyone else was merely metaphoric." Friedman emerged confident in her identity as a writer only after seven years of intense self-scrutiny with Sing. By then, the therapist's role had evolved into something far more ambiguous, and it is here that readers may come to understand what really goes on between therapist and patient. Friedman refers to Sing as a "thief of happiness." Though at times self-indulgent (as when the author veers off into half-articulated, dreamy memories, the book is excellent in the way H.D.'s is: it illuminates the intricate, murky relationship between therapy and real life, the ways in which, as the author quotes Adam Phillips, "in one's relationship with the analyst one unwittingly relives and thus discovers one's emotional history." Friedman is at her best when relaying the delicately nuanced exchanges that occur between the patient and therapist. "I can't be in treatment and be happy," she tells Sing. "That's a very interesting assumption," Sing replies. Agent, Malaga Baldi. (Jan. 17)Forecast: Fans of Friedman's first book will certainly like this one, and writers interested in the therapeutic process as a way to ease their block will enjoy it, too. With the right publicity campaign, the book could, like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, develop a cult following.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0807072427
• ISBN 13: 9780807072424
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 276