Book question ("The Gift of Therapy")

I did finish reading the Lillian Rubin book and enjoyed it. Caramee, I didn't pick up that she didn't believe in longterm therapy. It seemed like she saw some clients for several years.

It's very interesting to me to read how the different therapists approach therapy using illustrative cases. (Maybe that's partly why I like hanging out in the psychotherapy forum.) That's one reason I really liked that book I mentioned up thread called Their Finest Hour: Master Therapists Share Their Greatest Success Stories. Each therapist had one chapter for one case. Seeing them all gathered there with their very different approaches was really interesting and educational. As I read each chapter, I would think, now would I want to go to see this person as a therapist?

Even though all the therapists featured in Master Therapists (some 20 of them or more) had great reputations and were well respected, there were some I was drawn to and some I did not like at all. I found that if I didn't really like the therapist as a person, then I wasn't drawn to their therapy. For example, I had this other book checked out from the library at the time called American Shaman: An Odyssey of Global Healing Traditions. I was really interested to read this book, which chronicled the experiences of an American psychotherapist learning the healing traditions of other cultures. Anyway, he was also featured in the Master Therapists book, and this guy was so arrogant--I couldn't stand him! In fact, he may have been my most hated therapist in the book. So there was no way I could even crack open American Shaman.

I love reading people's book suggestions. Hope some more people will post their favorites...

One of my favorite "therapy"/life books is The Art of Becoming Human by retired psychiatrist Mary E. Mercer. I found it really helpful and comforting:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Becoming-H.../dp/1573929409

Makes for interesting reading - will look this up!

SSR

A few of the books I've read this summer:

(The Love Bug: and Other Tales of Psychotherapy)
by Dan W. Briddell

(Dealing with People You Can't Stand)
by Dr. Rick Brinkman and Dr. Rick Kirschner

(Reality Therapy) by William Glasser
****I thought that this guy was unbelievably arrogant!! However, it was interesting to read his point of view. I think he has a good grasp on how to deal with adolescents.

(The Instinct to Heal) by David Servan-Schreiber
*****I checked out this book thinking that I would just skim it, but ended up really loving it! Especially the beginning which explains the emotional brain versus the cognitive brain and how things can go wrong when the two are not harmonious.

For something a little different:
(Awakenings) by Oliver Sacks
*****This was a difficult book to read, so I just kind of skipped over some of the "neurological talk", but I thought it was fascinating! It detailed different patients' stories about having a "Parkinson-like disease" from sleeping sickness. It talks about how some patients came out of their "coma" after 40 years (after being given a new medicine at the time, L-Dopa) and what it was like for them.

Thanks for all of your recommendations!!

Thank you Perna! I went to Amazon via your link and read some of this book and loved the writing style and the content. I will be ordering it soon. Thank you for sharing it!

The poetry gets in the way sometimes if you're not in the mood for it but the style does pull you along; it gets even better as the "child" gets older because you remember and recognize yourself and what you wanted, needed, deserved, and felt as a child, and it gives hope for the future too; makes it all look "possible" and natural, like there really is a roadmap.

Yalom wrote a couple of novels too! I started one but didn't care for it, it was too "unsavory" (he had an arrogant, obnoxious, older therapist treating a younger, "idiot" one; no good models really) and gave it to my T who likes Yalom.