The Therapeutic Narrative Fictional Relationships and the Process of Psychological Change

Subjects:

• Psychology » Clinical Psychology
• Literature » World Literature

Reviews:

• 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

• Endorsement From
  Diane Wood Middlebrook, Professor of English
  Stanford University: In this lucid and engaging study, Barbara and Richard Almond argue that precise, authentic meanings may be found in the claim, "This is a book that changed my life." Drawing on a very wide range of literary plots and many years of clinical practice, the authors demonstrate the ways that certain stories provide models of the dynamic of healing interaction that is the goal of all psychotherapies. Never losing sight of crucial distinctions between art and life, the authors make a persuasive case for the relevance of bringing insights drawn from clinical work into the act of reading fiction, for the enrichment of both.
• Endorsement From
  Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D.
  Past-President, American Psychoanalytic Association
  and International Psycho-Analytical Association: 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.
• Endorsement From
  Irvin Yalom, M.D.
  Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Stanford University: 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 Brontë, George Eliot, and many others.

Table of Contents:

• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen's Foreshadowing of Psychoanalytic Process
• Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brönte): 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