Synopses & Reviews
How do people change? Longing for personal growth and transformation is a central theme of our times. Psychotherapy seeks to change the dynamics behind people's symptoms and conflicts. Writers, too, are fascinated by this theme, and have explored it frequently in their stories and characters. In this book, Barbara and Richard Almond, both psychoanalysts, explore a variety of novels that describe internal, personal change. They discover that there are fascinating parallels between the processes that lead to change in literary characters and the mechanisms observed in psychotherapeutic change.
From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden to Anne Tyler's IThe Accidental Tourist, the plot begins with a character struggling with personality limitations. A new person appears in the story; a bond is formed with the central character. In the relationship that follows, the two struggle. Confrontational and loving interactions lead the protagonist through a process of gradual change. The authors delineate a therapeutic narrative: the plot of change in both psychotherapy and literature. By comparing a variety of novels, they elaborate the elements of this therapeutic narrative and draw provocative conclusions about the mechanisms of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
Review
The authors present a novel way of conceptualizing a genre of classical 19th-century masterpiece novels and some of their modern companion novels as "therapeutic narratives" depicting healing interactions between major protagonists in ways analogous to therapeutic processes in real-life psychoanalytic treatments. A fascinating, psychoanalytically-informed perspective upon this species of novel that provides illumination for the literary and the psychoanalytic scholar alike.Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D. Past-President, American Psychoanalytic Association and International Psycho-Analytical Association
Review
In The Therapeutic Narrative, two eminent psychiatrists examine well-known fictional characters and relationships and provide the reader with an entirely fresh and highly perceptive understanding of familiar characters who dwell in the works of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and many others.Irvin Yalom, M.D. Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Stanford University
Review
The authors propose that novels often present 'therapeutic narratives' comparable to the psychoanalytic process that leads to the healing of psychic distress....undergraduates might find a model here of how to do a psychoanalytic reading ot classic English novels, for the book is clearly written and presupposes no previous encounter with psychoanlytical concepts.Choice
Synopsis
From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist, one of the most appealing themes in a novel is that of personal transformation through a relationship. In this volume, the Almonds show how this message is also that of successful psychotherapy or psychoanalysis.
Synopsis
From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist, one of the most appealing themes in a novel is that of personal transformation through a relationship. In this volume, the Almonds show how this message is also that of successful psychotherapy or psychoanalysis.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-199) and index.
About the Author
BARBARA ALMOND is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University Medical Center.RICHARD ALMOND is on faculty at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and is Clincial Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen's Foreshadowing of Psychoanalytic Process
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte): Mastering Passion and Guilt through Mutual Influence
Margaret Drabble's The Needle's Eye: A Depressive Neurosis Is Healed in a Spontaneous Relationship
The Accidental Tourist (Anne Tyler): Traumatic Loss and Pathological Grief Respond to "Accidental Therapy"
Silas Marner (George Eliot): Chronic Depression Resolves in a Complexly Layered Therapeutic Process
Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden: Multiple Cures, Multiple Processes of Cure
Heidi (Johanna Spyri): The Innocence of the Child As a Therapeutic Force
The Magus (John Fowles): A Literary Psychodrama
The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton): Tragedy--The Failure of a Relationship to Transform
Conclusion