Learn to free creativity from the shackles of emotional conflicts This riveting collection of case histories illustrates the dark interplay of neurosis and creativity. Psychotherapy with People in the Arts explores the struggles of writers, painters, actors, and composers to reconcile their overwhelming need to create and the self-doubts, frustrations, and neuroses that block their potential. In addition to ten inspiring tales of healing and self-knowledge, Psychotherapy with People in the Arts provides a solid introduction to the primary issues related to emotional disorders and creativity. It begins with a study of the notoriously reclusive and eccentric writer J. D. Salinger. Using both theory and case example, it shows how family history, present relations, and genetics can combine to impede the flow of an artist's natural gifts-and how a good therapist can help unblock that creative power. It also includes a series of tests to diagnose blocked creativity. Psychotherapy with People in the Arts explores such compelling themes as: dealing with racism and internalized self-hatred the conflict between commercial and high art anger and blocked tears the drive for an impossible perfection emotional alienation and sexual acting out Psychotherapy with People in the Arts is a fascinating look at a complex and controversial subject. Though not everyone is a professional artist, every human being has creative potential that can be blocked by emotional disturbances. And every therapist, mental health educator, and artist will find rich sources of information and inspiration in this book. Visit the author's website at http: //www.livingcenter.net/

76 TYPICAL THERAPY MISTAKES is a workbook for psychotherapists of all types, providing them with an instructive as well as entertaining way to avoid the common pitfalls of practicing psychotherapy. This practical book, written by a noted psychoanalyst, contains 76 teaching tales that cover all the typical mistakes therapists are prone to making. Each tale is followed by questions for readers to answer, and then an explanation of how the therapist went wrong and what he should have done. Written in a concise and witty style, the tales include "The Therapist Who Was Disgusted by Penises," "The Gay Therapist and the Handsome Brute," "The Grandiose Group Therapist," and "The Therapist Who Craved Love." The Workbook contains a helpful introduction on four types of countertransference and two types of counterresistance that often lead to therapy mistakes. Yet, for the most part, the book is free of terminology and can be read by professionals and lay people alike. It is sure to become a standard in the field.

Virgil, an aspiring New York artist and desperate nerd, meets Lila, a beautiful visitor from Eastern Europe with a mysterious flaw. He bumbles his way to her heart, but is handicapped by his phobia of beautiful women, which causes him to have a "kissing reflex," a malady that compels him to hastily kiss and have sex with a beautiful woman in order to allay his neurotic fears of rejection. Despite his handicap he succeeds in getting Lila to bed, whereupon she turns out not to be as beautiful as he thought. His despair at seeing her "birth defect" mortifies him, which in turn offends Lila and causes her to run off to Paradise Island. He follows her there and attempts to humbly apologize, but he is rebuffed again. Finally, after yelling at his mother during her misbegotten visit to New York, Virgil calms down and reaches a point of "temporary sanity," whereby he is able to engage in more mature conversation with Lila and show her his caring and generous side by painting her bathroom metallic gold, magenta, and green. Somehow all ends happily in the end. This is a romantic comedy like Something About Mary.

This volume contains the author's philosophical poems, accompanied by his expressionistic drawings. Two categories of poems populate the book. Those in the first section, "Holding On," are all about how the wanting or resenting things brings discontent. Those in the second section, "Letting Go," describe the state of accepting life as it is and living in harmony. The book has been culled from a lifetime of journal writing and doodling.

Based on the author's research as a psychoanalyst, A Way You'll Never Be tells the story of Robert Allen Jones (Bobby), the son of a white mother and a black father, and his unlikely relationship with a pretty runaway named Jenny. Written as a first-person diary, this hardboiled work provides a poignant glimpse into a serial murderer's mind as it follows him and teenage charmer Jenny on a road trip from Kansas to the Florida Keys. . Jenny falls in love with Bobby and wants to marry him to "make up for what your mom did," but he has other plans. The novel, full of oddball adventures, moves inexorably to its tragic ending in a cove on the Florida Keys. A haunting tale of with unforgettable characters, it has important things to say about love, murder, racial hatred and American culture.

Hank Flugelhorn, a man somewhat taken with hyperbole, has written a book about his adventures in outer space, and he doesn't care if you believe him or not. According to him, three naked girls sidled up to him one day and kidnapped him. They dragged him kicking and giggling to their space ship and whisked him off to their planet. On the way he was forced to donate a sperm sample via a spermatron and then required to satisfy each of the naked ladies, a feat which he accomplished with great finesse. Not that he needed to brag. On their planet he was thrown into the clutches of Xquisitrix, whose job was to reprogram him so that he would not contaminate women on her planet with his toxic behavioral habits brought from Earth. Xquisitrix explained to him during this reprogramming that all males had died out due to homopox. His job would be to repopulate the planet. He asserted that he would do his best. When the time came he threw himself into his work with ultimate dedication. On the seventh day he rested, only to discover that he had now contracted the dreaded homopox, which manifested itself in the slow rotting of his sexual organs. Before that happened he managed to steal a rocket and take off for earth with his favored space gal.

She was thin and tired, her arms marked by self-inflicted wounds. In his seventh session with Jennifer, Dr. Gerald Schoenewolf, then a young psychoanalyst, made an astounding discovery: this beautiful former ballerina was actually seven separate personalities, ranging from an angry little boy to an austere writer to a sexually provocative young woman. Tracing the birth of each of Jennifer's selves, Dr. Schoenewolf found himself drawn inexorably into a near obsession with her. Dealing directly with each of her personalities, he accompanied Jennifer on a profound journey of awakening and pain. This is a unique session-by-session account of an extraordinary year when a patient and doctor changed each other's lives forever. "An emotional, convincing account." --Publishers Weekly "This was a page-turner, a fascinating case of a disorder many of us will never see in practice. But it isn't necessary to be a therapist to find Schoenewolf's narrative an intriguing one." --Houston Chronicle "We are allowed to see the very human side of the therapist as he struggles with the suspicion, then the knowledge, that he has fallen in love with his patient....Once begun, this book is hard to put down." --South Bend Press

. This is inspiring tale of a man's journey through life. It follows him as he goes through an abusive childhood, fleeting fame as a young playwright, a later descent into madness, redemption by way of psychotherapy with a female therapist, and finally success as a man, psychotherapist and writer.

Advances the proposition that the first responsibility of psychotherapists is to analyse their own resistance to their patients. This primer aims at both new and experienced professionals, outlining the various kinds of counterresistance, their manifestations and how to analyse and resolve them.