You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Heilbrunn’s 2009 collection of personal essays offer an important addition to the sparse literature on analysts’ deaths and the resultant impact on patients. Remarkably poignant, all these accounts are well written in an experience-near manner. The variety of contributions offers multiple viewpoints on the relationship between the patient and analyst in circumstances where the death and/or serious illness of an analyst complicates, disrupts, or ends treatment.
The book is divided into two major parts: First, memoir-like honest accounts of patients, all therapists or analysts, who have lost one or more analyst from illness or accidental death. The second part features practitioners who became the replacement analyst facing the many challenges treating grieving patients. Sufficient analytic process is offered so the reader can follow the course of treatment. The accounts provide empathy for both the grieving patient and the second analyst. Finally, there are two contributions about how analytic institutions have failed. Specific recommendations are offered about what should be done to protect patients and candidates.
I anticipated my reading these accounts would be familiarly sad as I have been a practicing therapist for more than 50 years having witnessed many colleagues’ and patients’ illnesses and deaths. Unexpectedly, I had a renewed sense of wonder at how different individuals with distinct aptitudes, backgrounds, psychic vulnerabilities, and sensibilities have grabbled with these enormous psychological challenges. I was reminded again of the ubiquity of calamities that befall so many, yet the gift of being in our profession. This book should inspire us to do better as we are aging. There are lessons to be learned for all analysts despite the omnipresence of our denials, there is no escaping our eventual mortality.
In the early Part 1, written by patients, the chapter titles are evocative, providing a stimulating glimpse into their contents: Disappearing Shrinks, Un