Book: Voicelessness and Emotional Survival: Notes from the therapy underground

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi everyone,

Today, I published my book:

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival:  Notes from the therapy underground

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1790164028

Here's the Amazon description:

What if the most powerful tool in a therapist’s "toolbox" is the relationship between client and therapist? And what if this tool is neither examined nor taught in therapist training programs? Voicelessness and Emotional Survival: Notes from the therapy underground, a short book by Dr. Richard Grossman begins by describing the author’s personal and painful experiences as a student, practitioner and patient in the traditional therapy world and then reveals what he learned from these experiences (including the importance of “character,” “subtext” and “repetition” in therapeutic relationships), how understanding and valuing the real patient-therapist relationship changed his practice of therapy and how this new approach significantly improves the lives of patients. CBS News calls this new approach "relationship therapy for one" (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-bachelorette-rachel-lindsay-and-relationship-therapy-for-one/).

About the author: Working and teaching in the outpatient psychiatry department at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School by the age of twenty-four, psychologist Richard Grossman found himself silenced by the dogma, politics and quest for status in the psychiatry world. He quit Massachusetts General Hospital when he was thirty and retreated to a small basement office where he spent the rest of his career discovering what human beings truly need and how he could be most helpful. As part of his work, Grossman created the popular Voicelessness and Emotional Survival website and message board--now with more than 100,000 posts--devoted to helping people free themselves from damaging relationships and find their own voice. Featured three times in New England Psychologist, Grossman’s work has also appeared in Psychology Today, Boston Magazine, The Boston Globe, and Cosmopolitan (UK).

The first half of the book is a memoir of my experience with voicelessness within the psychology/psychiatry world.  The second half is what I did with this experience and how it shaped my beliefs about human beings, therapy and the world at large.

I'll appreciate all comments--both positive and negative--from those who choose to read the book.  And, of course, feel free to post your comments on the Amazon website as well.

Thank you, in advance, to all people who choose to read the book!  I very much appreciate it! 

Richard

[Hopalong]

Huge, heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS, Doc G!

From one of your very grateful voice-full guests.

love,
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Oh Dr G!  I'm so delighted to read that you have done this and will be ordering my copy later on today   I will warn in advance that I am a slow reader but I look forward to reading it very much.  I'm so pleased you have done this and, like Hops, I am endlessly grateful for everything you do and this space that you create.

Thank you,

Tup

[Hopalong]

Just hit the Buy Now button on Amazon!

 

Hops

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Thank you so much, Hops and Tup!  I'm very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts about it, including the personal parts.

Richard

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi everybody,

Here's the introduction to Voicelessness and Emotional Survival:  Notes from the therapy underground

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1790164028


"Sadly, it is the rare person who can enter another person’s world at the deepest and most vulnerable level.  One of the main reasons I chose to become a therapist was to learn how to do just this.  Naturally, I had expected that, as a result of their training, therapists would be far better than most at entering other people’s worlds, overcoming whatever obstacles and barriers they found in the way. But, over and over again my psychology teachers, supervisors and personal therapists taught me that they were no better than others at entering another person’s world, even though they believed they were experts.

Why can’t most therapists listen accurately and with empathy?   And why do all therapists believe they can?   This book addresses these questions.  The follow-up questions are even more important:  Can therapists be re-taught to enter another person’s world at the deepest and most vulnerable level?  And, if they can’t, what are current and future patients to do with this dark reality?

But another important question needs to be answered first:  Is it critical that all therapists be able to “hear” and enter a patient’s world in this way?  In fact, for many patients the answer is no.  Many patients are satisfied with practical advice, learning ways of training their brain to respond to distress in a new and different manner, or receiving simple emotional support as they struggle with the omnipresent pain that life and living with other human beings brings.  But as I have learned in my own life and by co-experiencing the lives of others, aloneness at the deepest level is often the most troublesome and hindering aspect of “being” in this world.  And having another person with you—sometimes in person, but also held in the cognitive and emotional parts of memory—is one of the most important and healing parts of therapy.  Because I learned this so early in my “training,” my career has been devoted to studying “voicelessness” and what can be done to help people who suffer as a result of it.

I thought it useful to begin this book with my own personal experience with voicelessness in order to illustrate how “deaf” and destructive the psychology/psychiatry/psychotherapy world—and the world in general—can be, how alone one can feel in it and why I learned to conceptualize and practice psychotherapy in a different way.  More importantly, I hope my personal history provides the reader with data and evidence for the concepts I write about in the second part of this book—character, subtext and repetition—concepts that play significant roles in the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of patients and therapists alike, and human beings in general.   Finally, I will talk about important issues that interfere with the “process” of finding a good therapist and the need to monitor whether or not your therapist is having a significant positive effect on your life."

[Ales2]

  Congrats to you Dr. G!

Clicking order now....

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Thanks, Ales2!  I'll look forward to all of your thoughts and comments particularly after you posted on your "Beware the scorned NM thread" (http://www.voicelessness.com/disc3//index.php/topic,10552.0.html):

"Worst part of therapy is there no way to appear anything less than dysfunctional or feel like I can maintain any self respect in the session. He asks, you answer and come off sounding like a loser. There is no other way about it.

Its what I hated with my last T and never got over it. Oh well. I feel fine when I am by myself and when I interact with other people. Who cares what therapy feels like? Its uncomfortable and unlike the gym, there is no upside to the discomfort.

Oh well. Nobody cares about that."

I hope you'll see after reading the book that I care, and I am really sorry for what you've been through with your therapists.

Richard

[lighter]

Congrats, Doc G:

I'm including your book on the next Amazon order.  I know you care, and am profoundly grateful that you do.

Lighter

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Thanks so much, lighter!  I know you care, too.  We have such an extraordinary group of "posters" on this message board--including you!  I hope you'll let me know your thoughts/feelings about the book when you finish reading.

Richard

[Hopalong]

Dear Doc G,
The more I read/learn about AEDP therapy, the more I wonder whether it might have been an amazing fit for you. If I'm right, I wish even harder that it had been available to you during your training. Imagine a career when you didn't feel like the voice crying in the wilderness!

https://aedpinstitute.org/

Your book has arrived and is #1 on my reading list for 2019, although it may be January before I can dig in.

With love and gratitude,
Hops

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi Hops,

I spent some time on the AEDP website.  While there’s some overlap, especially in the “attachment” area, I’m not sure that I would be a good fit with their approach either, and I suspect they would ultimately find me to be a “bomb dropper” as well (you’ll understand what I mean by this when you read the book).  For example, in my view, it is the real relationship between patient and therapist that matters most. And, as a result, the "character" of the therapist is of utmost importance.   I spend a lot of time “talking” about this in the book.  But from what you write, it sounds like you know significantly more about AEDP’s approach, so you’ll know better than I whether I would “fit in” after you read my book.  Let me know!  I can’t wait to hear all of your thoughts and feelings!

And, as always, thank you for all the help and support you've provided to people on this board for 14 years!  It's meant a lot to me...

Richard

[Twoapenny]

Dr G, I have started reading your book.  I like to read books twice; once to get the gist and a second time to think more deeply about the issues raised.  I've only just started the first read but something has already jumped out at me so strongly.  At the end of the first paragraph on page 19 (I won't put it into context because I don't want to spoil it for anyone else) you write:

"......because he was the doctor/expert, there were never any consequences, or, for that matter, anything patients could do or say because if they did, it would simply be seen as part of their problem"

That, for me, sums up every problem I have encountered with the public sector (and, indeed, many members of the public) regarding my son.  Doctors, teachers, social workers, paper pushers, even receptionists and secretaries sometimes - they don't 'get' my son.  No-one spends enough time with him to really understand the way his sensory issues affect him; to know that much of what he says is learnt phrases he's memorised from films or books and he doesn't actually understand what he's saying; to know that noise that wouldn't bother them at all is like someone drilling into his brain; how much every day activities tired him and make him unwell, how much time I spend on alternatives for him - acupuncture, osteopathy, homeopathy, vitaimin supplements, daily physiotherapy and goodness only knows how much else.  That for him to do well at college I have to spend the other 144 hours of the week not doing too much so he doesn't get too tired to manage the 24 hours a week he's at college.  No-one else sees that, but I do, and when I try to explain it to people - so that other people can look after him in a manner that his disability dictates - I'm over-ruled, because I'm too emotional, or I won't let go, or I've got mental health problems, or I'm not seeing it from their point of view, or anyone of goodness only knows how many other things I've had thrown at me over the years.  It's enormously frustrating and it's what has broken me over the years - many, many years of not being heard.  So yes, thank you so much, you've summed it up so well in just that sentence.

I'm really enjoying it and so much is resonating with me already but that part really summed things up for me so I wanted to mention that quickly now x

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi Tup,

I’m so glad the book is resonating!  Yes, people in the field of psychological health have done much damage over time.  That was the reason I thought it important to write about my psychology professors, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School boss and two therapists.  I’m so sorry you and your son have experienced the same.  At least we’re not alone.

Thank you for commenting.  It’s funny, but two people have told me that they read the book twice and appreciated it even more the second time around!  So, your second “take” will also be important!

Please let me know all of your thoughts!

Richard

[OnlyMe]

Here I am! One would hope that now that both of my NPs are deceased, that the toxicity would end.  Well, I find that a lifetime of having NPs (and no siblings) has left many more scars that are only beginning to surface.  Amazing, somehow.... and so as I tried to wrap my head around yet another layer of healing, I remembered you, DrG, and all of this wonderfully supportive and understanding group, and so I logged in - and imagine how comforted I was to find that you are still here! Whew and Yippee.  AND, that you, DrG have written a book! What a magical coincidence, I'd say!  Perfect timing, every which way. Yes, I have now ordered it, and it will arrive around Jan 17th.  Thanking you in advance!