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This is a novel no one should read—not the general public or candidates-in-training. It trivializes the processes, techniques, and experience critical to psychoanalytic treatment. Neither should it be read by certified psychoanalysts who may wrongly incline toward the slanderous representation Yalom offers of the Golden Gate Psychoanalytic Institute.
We had not previously disputed the contributions of Irvin Yalom. Certainly, his Theory and Practice of Group Psychology and Existential Psychotherapy were regarded by us as classics. Yet, at a single stroke, with his publication of Lying on the Couch Yalom has discredited his earlier works, which now need to be reevaluated in the light of this irresponsible and scurrilous volume.
We give credit, nevertheless. We do not dispute that this clever book is likely to be enormously entertaining to the underanalyzed. Nevertheless, it needs to be said that the entertainment found in its pages derives from the gratification of scoptophilic wishes and from the fulfillment of simple identificatory impulses with an oedipal winner. The novel is emplotted predictably: It concerns the unwitting defeat by the innocent, talented son of the complacent, arrogant father and the simultaneous and improbable transformation of the devouring pre-oedipal mother into a genitally realized angel of light. Son and mother form a perfect union directed to the rehabilitation of the unregenerate father. Quite obviously, the image of the truth-seeking, courageous, humble-yet-messianic protagonist captures the author's own narcissistic yearnings. We are confident that most of those here at GGPI will find the author's unfolding of the plot tedious and unlikely.
While I eagerly anticipate presiding at our Institute-wide discussion of Lying on the Couch, I want to express beforehand my most immediate concerns. Although I have agreed to preside at this discussion, I fear that our Institute is gracing the book with a wrongheaded importance. At the same time, any s