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From Publishers Weekly
Faked orgasms, family secrets and an exaggerated sense of privacy prevent women from embracing their own identities, evaluating their relationships and assuming fuller roles in society, avers Lerner ( The Dance of Anger ), a psychologist at the Menninger Clinic. She notes how secrets create insiders and outsiders within families and give secret-keepers inflated notions of power and/or guilt. Addressing the issue of whether to confess to infidelity, Lerner advocates telling so that weaknesses in the primary relationship can be faced. This insightful feminist treatise focuses most on deception in marriage and families; a wider examination of how exaggeration, lies and secrecy operate in other arenas of women's lives would have bolstered Lerner's contention that the deceptions described here are related to the lower rung women occupy in society.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
The author of The Dance of Anger (1989) and The Dance of Intimacy (1990) completes her trilogy. But this new volume-- unlike the first two--isn't a self-helper but, rather, a freewheeling, feminist contemplation of truth-telling and deception, privacy and secrecy, and honesty and pretense in women's lives. Lerner (a staff psychologist at the Menninger Clinic) focuses on how these qualities function in relationships, and also in a woman's relationship to herself. She postulates that our culture is a patriarchy in which women are deterred from expressing thoughts or feelings that might disrupt the harmony of relationships. Consequently, privacy becomes necessary (speaking out exposes women to emotional and physical harm) as well as dangerous (privacy isolates women, keeping them trapped in false myths about female experience). Lerner views truth-telling as a process that requires women to be in the kind of conversation with other women that allows each woman to be herself and to explore that self: Only then can women identify what unites them and construct ``more complex, encompassing, richer, and accurate'' truths about themselves. Honesty, Lerner says, isn't always the best policy, for unconsidered honesty can create an atmosphere of anxiety in which real truth-telling cannot occur. She believes that pretending can be both destructive and constructive, for living a lie blocks one from self-knowledge, yet pretending to possess certain qualities can lead to actual possession of them. These moral ambiguities are explored in case studies and through personal anecdotes that reveal the impact of secrecy on family relationships and the many ways in which women deceive themselves and others. Low on organization but high in appeal, particularly to feminists. (For a less gender-specific--and sharper--discussion of the relative morality of truth-telling, see David Nyberg's The Varnished Truth, p. 124.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific book,
By Joanie (Kansas City, Mo) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dance Of Deception (Paperback)
I think this is Harriet Lerner's best book. I has the clearest and most helpful chapter on family secrets that I've ever read. The chapter called "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Orifice" is worth the price of the book. The chapter on affairs, even though controversial, should be helpful to all couples, especially if you think your partner will never cheat on you.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clarity and Courage,
By ashley (Tacoma) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dance Of Deception (Paperback)
Harriet Lerner has long been writing books that are both insightful and accessible. In 'The Dance of Deception' she has achieved something miraculous: she has written a book that can help you reconnect with estranged family members and friends, improve your rapport with your children, no matter their age, and, perhaps most importantly, help alleviate the pain that deception has caused you in your own life. I have suffered greatly because of family secrets and have also struggled recently to communicate with my loved ones about painful topics. This book has served as an indispensable guide through these difficult processes and has helped me emerge a stronger, happier person. I am greatly indebted to Harriet Lerner. And I firmly believe the world is a better place for having her in it!!
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dance Of Deception (Paperback)
After reading The Dance of Anger, I was charged with energy to change patterns in relationships that I had fallen into. I thought this book would have a similar effect, because I know that I hide things that seem too painful to discuss. However, I couldn't get into it because it seemed more of a political agenda than a guide to improving relationships. What on earth does the author's stance on abortions (very pro-choice) have to do with deception in personal relationships? I haven't gotten much constructive self-knowledge out of this book.
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