Strangely enough, this is not a book about schizophrenia— where the defining characteristic is to experience hallucinations. Instead, it is about hallucinations that occur in the context of drug use, sensory deprivation, torture, extreme fear, near-death experiences, dreams, and the like. Siegel has carved out a special niche in this area, having devoted his research, teaching (Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences/UCLA), and clinical and forensic career as a neuropsychiatrist to studying the phenomenon and trying to fathom the relationship of it to what is happening in the brain. No passive observer, he is himself an experienced ``psychonaut.'' Siegel presents 17 case studies, grouped under the headings of ``visionary drugs,'' ``dreams,'' ``imaginary companions,'' and ``life-threatening danger.'' The cases are gripping—more so thanks to Siegel's graphic telling. Many are also horrifying: the story of two girls repeatedly raped after they had their drinks laced with ketamine, a drug that leaves subjects immobilized and hallucinating; the tale of a victim tortured by having deep skin flaps peeled away from his backside—and who somehow projected his agony into a scream that enabled him to detach himself from the pain. Other accounts include those of a sailor coked to the gills who conjured up a long-dead friend who guided him through a storm; the LSD flashbacks experienced by a pool hustler who was as good as the legendary Minnesota Fats; and Siegel's own experiences with peyote and shamans in Mexico, with a succubus-type of dream, and during a session in J.C. Lilly's water tank under ketamine. What makes the study especially meaningful is Siegel's no- nonsense attitude: Hallucinations really are all in your mind; many share common elements as the brain tries to make sense of circuits gone bizarre for one reason or another. Here the details are sketchy but fit the cases—which are unforgettable.
Pub Date: March 13, 1992
ISBN: 0-525-93408-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
A fascinating memoir that helps laypeople understand the therapeutic process. Veteran psychotherapist Akeret (Photoanalysis, 1973, etc.) introduces five former patients, including a Jewish woman who is intent on remaking herself into a Spanish flamenco dancer; a man in love with a polar bear who literally wants to consummate the relationship; and a very gifted, if highly narcissistic and promiscuous, French writer who, when the author visits him after many years, reveals that he intends to make his suicide the subject of his last novel. In recalling his work with these five, Akeret reveals a great deal about his humanistic and existential approach to psychotherapy—one of his teachers was Erich Fromm—and illustrates how often it requires verbal restraint so that the practitioner may enter the patient's emotional and imaginative worlds. At other times, however, Akeret uses intuition and countertransference (the therapist's deepest emotional responses to the patient) to make unconventional, sometimes startling, interventions. With the polar bear's lover, this includes accompanying the patient to the circus cage where the object of his adoration dwells. Does psychotherapy ``work''?—i.e., make better the lives of individuals who often have invested enormous emotional energy and pain, not to mention money, in it? Akeret vaguely reports that of the five patients, three ``generally feel much better''; two don't. His sample is obviously too small for these results to be meaningful, and therapy is in any case more an art practiced between two idiosyncratic individuals than a science. Also, as Akeret rightly notes, there may be a values conflict between what the therapist thinks the patient needs and what the latter wants. Like Irvin Yalom's Love's Executioner, which it resembles, this book takes readers into the interpersonal nuances and occasional drama of psychotherapy—and into the human comedy—in a colorful, accessible, insightful way.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-393-03779-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
A persuasive if belabored dissent from the traditional theory that people are motivated to learn by reward and punishment. Deci (Psychology/Univ. of Rochester) and Flaste (former science and health editor of the New York Times; editor of The New York Times Book of Science Literacy, 1990) argue that what most motivates people to learn, complete a task, or change behavior is a strengthening of their sense of acting autonomously, i.e., due regard for their needs, perspectives, and working style. In developing this point, the authors make some important distinctions, arguing, for example, that encouraging autonomy must at times be carefully balanced with limit-setting and that autonomy is not the same as individualism. (Individualists, they maintain, easily can become narcissistic ``loners'' while truly autonomous individuals balance self-fulfillment and interpersonal concerns.) Unfortunately, the authors nearly beat their point to death through repetition and resort to generalizations. Rarely do they cite quantitative results from the many psychology studies to which they refer, and they inadequately distinguish among the needs and pressures of various educational, industrial/corporate, social, and other settings. Most frustratingly, their book is limited largely to theory; they only vaguely limn some possible methods for helping individuals draw on and develop intrinsic creative energy rather than submitting to internal compulsions or extrinsic demands. At times, this results in conclusions that seem self-evident, e.g., ``People who are more autonomy oriented have higher self-esteem and are more self-actualized.'' Deci and Flaste thus develop a fairly good case for autonomy's key role in increasing motivation—particularly in helping people persist despite frustrations in trying to reach a goal—but their argument is blandly written, overstated, overgeneralized, and overlong.
Pub Date: June 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14047-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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