A Curious Calling: Unconscious Motivations for Practicing Psychotherapy - Hardcover

Sussman, Michael B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0876685165 ISBN 13: 9780876685167

Publisher: Jason Aronson Publishers, 1977

Synopsis

The road to becoming a professional psychotherapist is typically long and arduous. Once having arrived, the actual practice of psychotherapy is emotionally taxing and the process is frequently characterized by a good deal of anxiety, ambiguity and doubt. What are the underlying motivations that provide the impetus for such an undertaking? This is the complex and intriguing question to which this book is addressed. The care of other people rather than oneself is a superb form of adaptation - but only if the self is also cared for. By recognizing and mastering the more pathological sources of their wish to heal, psychotherapists can ultimately heal their own wounds, and achieve a more truly loving a creative helping capacity.

About this title

Review

...an excellent review of how therapists have understood their own motivations for practicing psychotherapy.--Stuart Scheiderman, The New York Times Book Review

Nowhere is there a more complete and coherent explication of the myriad of forces that lead all of us into careers as psychotherapists....Readers will respond to Dr. Sussman's bok with sighs of recognition over and over again as they find aspects of themselves jumping out at them from the pages fo the book.--Glen Gabbard M.D.

The author is to be congratulated for his orderly approach and his courage to delve into a controversial area. He has written a book that should be read by all mental health workers, a volume that contains both wisdom and compassion.--Peter L. Giovacchini, M.D., Psychoanalytic Books: A Quarterly Journal of Reviews

Psychotherapists with perfect mental health should avoid this book. The rest of us will benefit greatly from Dr. Sussman's important contribution. Providing a sophisticated, psychodynamic discussion of the complex motives which fuel the desire to help others, the author challenges us to know ourselves more fully and thereby to deepen the therapeutic process. This well-documented and thought-provoking book should be read by all cliniclans, and by those who train them.--Amy Schaffer PhD

Dr. Sussman's A Curious Calling is a must-read for any clinician with an unconscious. Sussman writes compellingly of the therapist as a 'wounded healer, ' motivated by a whole host of powerful unconscious forces. His book is a disturbing but sympathetic exploration of a controversial issue--the therapist's 'dark place, ' those unconscious motivations that can be unconscionably destructive if not acknowledged or profoundly constructive if recognized and known. It is an awesome responsibility to be in the position of helping another come to know himself and his unconscious; if the therapist is to be able effectively to assume responsibility, he must truly know himself, as well.--Martha Stark, M.D.

How can I convey the excitement engendered by this book? Sussman makes a unique contribution to the literature of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with its publication....This book is both stimulating and challenging. It should be required reading in training programs for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.--Frederick S. Mittleman, M.D., Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

About the Author

Michael B. Sussman, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Sussman has worked in private practice and as a clinical instructor at Harvard University. He is the editor of A Perilous Calling: The Hazards of Psychotherapy Practice and the author of a children's picture book, Otto Grows Down.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jason Aronson Publishers
• Publication date: 1977
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0876685165
• ISBN 13: 9780876685167
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304