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.
I think we stand to learn much more about the way we work and the vicissitudes of the analyzing instrument if we can become freer to talk about and study the full range of our reactions.
In his book Notes from the Margins, Sherman provides the reader with a window to an analyst's subjectivity through his emotionally charged interactions with nine patients. Throughout the 10 chapters of Sherman's book, I felt much respect and appreciation for him. His willingness to open up his consulting room helps provide therapists with the companionship they need in difficult moments within the therapeutic setting. Sherman explores his dilemmas and his complex understanding of his countertransference enactments that ultimately lead him to make his clinical decisions, which he shares with the readers with honesty and sensitivity. Generally in literature, clinical examples illustrate theory. In this unique book it is the other way around: theoretical discussions illustrate the author's clinical work. In his book, Sherman explores vividly, frankly, and evocatively the difficulties he faces with his patients, his mistakes, failures, frustrations, and doubts as well as his therapeutic accomplishments. Sherman's accomplishments are no doubt a result of his courage, determination, empathy, and especially his compassion toward his patients.
The dilemmas inherent in the analyst self-disclosure and transference-countertransference enactments are the focus for most of the chapters. Sherman takes many risks in exploring his countertransference feelings, risks that most of us are unwilling to take. When writing my own book (Cohen, 2003) on the treatment of traumatized adolescents, I struggled with the question of how many of my feelings and how much of my personal life I was willing to share with the reader. Was it a question of concerns about the effect of my disclosure on my patients who may read the book, or was it concern for “being known”? I still don't have an ans