DELIVERING DOCTOR AMELIA

A fascinating view of the interactions between a psychologist and his patient during the therapeutic process.

Shapiro (Clinical Psychiatry/Univ. of Arizona) specializes in physician-patient relations and in counseling people through medical crises. Here, his patient is an obstetrician who has given up delivering babies because of her anguish over a medical mistake: she feels that her delay in performing a Caesarian caused a baby to develop cerebral palsy. Shapiro divides his book into 29 sessions during which Amelia (a pseudonym) speaks at length about her thoughts, feelings, and experiences while he reacts both as her therapist and as a human being. His own long bout with Hodgkin’s (recounted in Mom’s Marijuana, 2000) and his wife’s unhappy experiences with a fertility specialist make Shapiro especially conscious of the consequences of medical misjudgments. Further, he cannot help but imagine his own small daughter as the victim of an obstetrician’s error, and his anger at Amelia is something he must recognize and deal with if the therapy is to proceed. Shapiro deftly weaves together the evolving emotions of both therapist and patient as Amelia descends closer and closer to suicide. Eventually, after therapy and hospitalization, she reaches the turning point that allows her to overcome doubts about her competence. Once she can again see herself as a caring physician, she is able to confront and apologize to the mother of the afflicted child. Telling much of Amelia’s story as though it were being spoken by a patient in therapy, Shapiro gives it a vivid and compelling immediacy.

No need to be either doctor or patient to appreciate the situation, but this revealing narrative of self-discovery will have special appeal for therapists.