How to Choose a Psychotherapist text by Neville Symington, cartoons by Joan Symington, edited by Andrew Symington, conceived by David Symington ( Karnac, London & New York, 2003).  62 pp.

This slim volume is the result of a joint effort of the Symington family. Neville Symington is a psychoanalyst and the author of established psychoanalytic classics such as: Emotion and Spirit; Narcissism: A New Theory; The Making of a Psychotherapist; The Spirit of Sanity and a Pattern of Madness. His wife, Joan, also a psychoanalyst is co-author with Neville of The Clinical Thinking of Wilfred Bion and author of Imprisoned Pain. Andrew and David are their sons.

The authors, who work in private practice in Australia, believe that it is the patient's responsibility to find the right therapist and pay for his treatment. In the six chapters of their book they give a thumbnail sketch of psychotherapy and attempt to guide a patient to choose the right therapist, or to empower him to challenge his psychotherapist if the treatment has not led to the desired improvement and to change therapist if necessary.

In the first chapter, they claim that therapy is concerned with actually treating the cause of mental disorder rather than curing behaviour, which disturbs social stability. Psychotherapy is concerned to bring someone to his full potential. In the case of someone who has had a serious mental collapse, good psychotherapy can help to reverse the situation and turn it into a new beginning.

In the second chapter, they emphasize the qualities that make a good psychotherapist. An essential ingredient of the therapist's training is to go through therapy himself. Once the therapist knows himself well he can disentangle and separate the patient's mind from his own. The central goal of the therapist is to offer the patient self-knowledge. The patient changes as soon as he understands himself.

In the third chapter, they enumerate the signs that the patient must be on the look out for, that will inform him whether the therapist will be able to strengthen his mind in order to manage better the disasters in his life.

The first sign is a gut feeling that the therapist has suffered enough a