Practical Psychoanalysis for Therapists and Patients

(Paperback)

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This is a clear and readable how-to manual for results-oriented psychoanalysis. The way psychoanalytic treatment is generally conducted is extremely impractical and doesn't serve the needs of the vast majority of potential patients, who want to achieve maximum relief from emotional distress as quickly as possible. In this essential new book, Owen Renik describes how clinical psychoanalysis can focus on symptom relief and deliver results efficiently. His straightforward presentation of clinical anecdotes combined with useful recommendations for both analyst and patient amounts to a clear and readable how-to manual.

Reviews

Foreword Magazine

This couchbuster could be the tipping point for a second Freudian revolution....

The author, a psychiatrist and respected teaching analyst in San Francisco and editor of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly for a decade, has the credentials to make his practical, humane approach credible to his colleagues. He distills his professional and personal experience with a comfortable balance of assurance and humility. Patients will love it, progressive analysts will embrace him, conservatives will distance themselves.

This book should shake up the Freudian establishment, as it empowers patients and their advocates. Historians of psychoanalysis will hear echoes of Otto Rank, Harry Stack Sullivan, Clara Thompson, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, and Irvin Yalom. Here they come home to roost, if not to crow. It takes an Owen Renik to do this, as it took Richard Nixon to open the door to China where others could only wait, or knock in frustration. The ghost of Sigmund Freud will probably nod his approval.


PsycCritiques

Owen Renik's slim volume, Practical Psychoanalysis for Therapists and Patients, is written in jargon-free, straightforward language that ensures its accessibility to both patients and therapists. In the jacket notes, Allen Wheelis describes Renik as a new broom in the littered corridors of psychoanalysis.

...Sometimes a broom is just a broom. In this case, however, Renik's broom sweeps away some of the accumulated cobwebs that have obscured the brilliance of Freud's invention, psychoanalysis. Writing, as he does, from the pinnacle of a career devoted to psychoanalytic practice and scholarship, Owen Renik's call for mutual engagement, humility, and a bit of practicality is welcome.

Author Bio

Owen Renik, M. D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly and former Scientific Program Chair of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Renik has written numerous articles on a variety of clinical and theoretical topics. He currently lives and practices in San Francisco. Owen Renik tells fascinating tales of therapy and vividly and honestly describes the real exchanges between therapists and patients, as Irwin Yalom and the contributors to the book Inside Therapy do. The unique feature of Renik's book is that while recounting these tales he also teaches his readers how psychoanalysis and psychotherapy work to bring about results and change how people feel and live.