What Really Goes on in Treatment: A Book Review of Notes From the Margins: The Gay Analyst's Subjectivity in the Treatment Setting by Eric Sherman

This is a book that has been crying out to be written. It found the right author in Eric Sherman. He candidly and movingly reveals his unique experiences as a gay analyst. At this moment in time, being gay in America remains unacceptable to the majority of people. As I write this review, New York, one of the most progressive states in the country has failed to legalize gay marriage. Homosexual men and women continue to have unequal status and are not entitled to various forms of emotional and financial security that married heterosexual people take for granted. What are some of the consequences of this state of affairs for patients and especially for clinicians? Sherman addresses what it's like to be a gay analyst. Further, with detailed clinical vignettes, he conveys a broad range of feelings, needs, and experiences that bring the quality of the analyst's subjectivity to a new level.

At the outset, Sherman states the essence of his book.

I aim, with some trepidation, to do something quite radical: to talk about what really goes on in the treatment room—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the uncertain … even during relatively quiet stress-free moments, our subjectivity remains forever engaged. For all those clinicians who have ever felt a sense of shame about their imperfections, I hope the revelation of my own experiences can engender a feeling of freedom rather than of isolation. (p. 3)

Talking about what really goes on in the treatment room is radical indeed.

Psychoanalytic authors have dedicated considerable thought and energy in the past two decades to the patient's and analyst's subjectivity and inter-subjectivity, yet most clinical accounts focus on heightened affective moments, the analyst's subsequent understanding of his and his patient's subjectivity, which then create transformational experiences. Sherman takes us an important step further.