From Publishers Weekly
A decade after Peter Kramer's bestselling Listening to Prozac (also published by Viking) refashioned cultural attitudes and beliefs about mental, emotional or personality disorders and their treatment, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Frattaroli reexamines the "Medical Model" of psychiatry, according to which disturbances such as brain chemistry imbalances are treated solely with psychopharmacology. Lamenting that the brain has replaced the mind or the soul as the object of healing in psychiatry, he offers a clear and comprehensive description of how the alternative "Psychotherapeutic Model" works to bring the unconscious into consciousness, addressing inner conflicts that can't be medicated and ultimately offering deeper and more permanent healing. Using case studies from his own practice, Frattaroli makes a strong argument for the effectiveness of and need for long-term psychotherapy. However, he is careful not to condemn the use of drugs in treating mental and emotional disorders. Heavily influenced by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, with whom he trained, and borrowing from Martin Buber's "I-Thou" vs. "I-It" principle, Frattaroli provides an unusually lucid explanation of Freud's theories of personality, inner conflict, transference and the therapeutic relationship. In view of the current "quick fix" culture and the "greed of the managed care industry," which doesn't usually pay for long-term psychotherapy, Frattaroli calls for an integration of biological and psychoanalytic approaches. His insights are fresh, highly readable, informative, passionate and memorable. (Sept.)Forecast: Ten years in the making, this thoughtful defense of the talking cure could be important and influential for many years to come. A six-city author tour is scheduled for January
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
To his first book, Frattaroli, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and teacher (Univ. of Pennsylvania), brings wide reading in science and the humanities, long experience as a therapist, and remarkable self-analysis. The result is a discursive, challenging, important meditation on the human process of helping others and ourselves through a complex empathic awareness. Frattaroli critiques the ills of scientific materialism, the medical model, and the culture of quick fixes, arguing that the soul needs another kind of healing. In this regard, he both defends and improves upon Freudian psychology with the help of Niels Bohr, Erik Erikson, John Searle, and even Plato and Descartes and arrays it against neurological and pharmaceutical evangelism. Yet while he crusades against a strictly materialist bias, Frattaroli does not engage in New Age soul-flashing, instead respecting brain chemistry, the conservative use of medication, and the tools of humane science. Ultimately, he brings out what is best in the therapeutic procedure. It is only disappointing that Carl Jung gets a mere footnote and that Otto Rank is not mentioned. A major achievement, this is essential for all libraries. E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
