Summary
Contents
‘It is surely worth reading, not only by the author's fellow psychiatrists, but also by psychologists in general’ — Contemporary Psychology. ’I found this book a joy to read. Each chapter sets out the orthodoxy in question, then proceeds to explain lucidly the author's difficulties with this orthodoxy and to suggest an alternative way of looking at the issues’ — Self and Society Psychotherapy's influence seems all pervasive today. But to what end? Is helping people really therapy's main mission? This provocative book explores the alternatives to psychotherapeutic orthodoxies on such vital issues as sexuality; the self; the unconscious; creativity; and the dilemma of evil. Erensto Spinelli challenges psychotherapy, asking if it has retreated from its early promise of being a pivotal agent in our attempts to discover what it means to be human, in exchange for its current role as a pacifier of personal and social unease.
Beyond the Great Beyond
Beyond the Great Beyond
A couple of years ago, a client of mine, Paula, began our session somewhat uncharacteristically by recounting a dream she had had the night before. In that dream, she had felt herself to be witness to an odd encounter between myself and another, unnamed, female client. My dream client was a young Asian woman who appeared to be in great distress. Paula explained that it was obvious to her that the young woman was either on the verge of, or had just attempted, an act of suicide and that it had been due only to my sudden presence and calming influence that the act had either been put off or had failed. Paula was able to describe my ...
