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.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This eloquent, stream-of-consciousness case study of psychotherapy entangles the reader from the first page. A patient in therapy for seven years, Friedman (Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life) portrays her thoughts and feelings during the process of analysis through exquisitely painted word-pictures. She shows how she recovered from her writer's block and achieved new levels of self-confidence through what felt like an almost magical process. At the same time, she leaves the reader confused about what's really happening and certain that this woman is seriously helpless and disturbed. As years go by and her relatively normal life continues, Friedman begins to fear that she is dependent on the therapy itself. The analyst would no doubt say that her recovered sense of self was the result of therapy, but Friedman portrays the analyst as the thief who kept her dependent and unhappy for so long. An intriguing book for large public or medical libraries; no notes or index. Margaret Cardwell, Christian Brothers Univ. Lib., Memphis
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
