From Publishers Weekly:
Uncertain whether psychotherapy brings fundamental, long-lasting change, New York City psychoanalyst Akeret recently tracked down five patients whom he had treated 20-35 years earlier. One of them, Naomi Goldberg, a self-hating Bronx college student abused and rejected by her parents in the late 1950s, had, during therapy, adopted the persona of a Spanish flamenco dancer, calling herself Isabella Cortez. Another patient, Seth Waterson, had been a newly married, impotent young filmmaker given to sadomasochistic fantasies, having been raised by a sexually abusive stepfather and a mother who strapped him in a constricting harness like a dog on a leash. We also meet nurse/midwife Mary McGinely, who believed she could murder people by wishing them dead; French novelist Sasha Alexandrovich, a narcissist with writer's block; and circus performer Charles Embree, who had a psychosexual obsession with a polar bear. Although none of these people had achieved a "perfect cure," three went on to lead productive, happy lives, whereas therapy had mixed results with the other two. Akeret's compulsively readable profiles are compelling existential dramas, and, with this deeply insightful book, he joins the front rank of psychotherapists who write about their practices.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist:
Psychotherapist Akeret realized long ago that his professional "world is lopsided with prologues, bereft of endings." When he turned 66, he decided to find out what some of his more intriguing patients were doing many years after therapy. He selected five to visit: Naomi, a rejected child; Charles, who emotionally and literally ran away to the circus; Seth, who suffered impotence; Mary, who thought she had killed her father; and Sasha, a narcissistic French novelist and seeker after youth and sex. Akeret smoothly combines accounts of those patients' therapies with their results, expected and unexpected, as evidenced during his visits. Naomi became Isabella, a flamenco dancer, and adjusted fairly well. Charles became involved in S-M at night while successfully teaching in "clown college" by day. Like Naomi and Charles, the others all solved some of their problems but not others. During his travels, besides finding out much about his patients, Akeret learned something about himself and his purpose in life. William Beatty
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