The Psychotherapist as Healer

T. Byram Karasu says that healing, at best, is not what the healer does, but what he is; that what really matters are not the schools of psychotherapy, but the psychotherapists themselves. In this deeply moving and self-revealing book, Karasu portrays the therapist as healer through a series of clinical vignettes from the treatment of a younger therapist whom the author perceives to be more intelligent, talented, and better educated than himself. This patient, a veteran of a classical analysis and two lengthy therapies, challenges the therapist at every turn and engages him in a search for new experiential truths. The reader is privy to the internal monologue of the therapist as he conceives of and rejects interpretations, looks to varied experts for help, and ends with an inner voice not heard before.

T. Byram Karasu, M.D., a graduate of the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, is presently the Silverman Professor and University Chairman of the Deparmtent of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstien College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, and the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Psychotherapy. He is the author or editor of 20 books, including two novels, Of God and Madness and The Gotham Chronicles-The Culture of Sociopathy; a book of poetry, Rags of My Soul; the seminal work, Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders; and two best sellers, The Art of Serenity and The Spirit of Happiness. Dr. Karasu is a scholar, renowned clinician, teacher and lecturer, and the recipient of numerous awards. He lives in New York City.