Routledge The Therapist as a Person: Life Crises, Life Choices, Life Experiences, and Their Effects on Treatment (Relational Perspectives Book Series)

In this collection of powerfully illuminating and often poignant essays, contributors candidly discuss the impact of central life crises and identity concerns on their work as therapists. With chapters focusing on identity concerns associated with the body-self (body size, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age), urgent life crises, and defining life circumstances, The Therapist as a Person exemplifies the myriad ways in which the therapist's subjectivity shapes his or her interaction with patients. Included in the collection are life events rarely if ever dealt with in the literature: the death of family members, late pregnancy loss, divorce, the failure of the therapist's own therapy, infertility and childlessness, the decision to adopt a child, and the parenting of a profoundly deaf child. Review "We are indebted to the authors of these stirring essays for sharing with us their particular, courageous struggles to alloy profoundly personal experiences with their deep commitment as therapists to their patients' well-being and development." - Irwin Z. Hoffman, Ph.D., Author, Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process (Analytic Press, 2001) "I found it an enormously moving and inspiring book. The contributors communicate cogently -- in action, by example--so much that we have been struggling to talk about in the psychoanalytic literature. They deserve our congratulations and gratitude." - Owen Renik, M.D., San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute