THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SEX

Six tales of imaginary encounters between a psychoanalyst and her patients that dramatically illustrate what the experience

of psychoanalytic therapy is like from an analyst’s point of view. Orbach (Fat Is a Feminist Issue, not reviewed), cofounder of the Women's Therapy Centre in London and therapist for the late Princess Diana, has created a fictional therapist and seven fictional patients whose stories contain "emotional truths" distilled from her clinical experience. Interspersed with the stories, and set off from them, are the analyst’s musings, in which she pulls back from her involvement with the patient, thinks about her feelings, and examines their relationship to the therapeutic process. The first story, featuring sexually troubled Adam, explores the analyst’s response to a patient’s erotic attraction to her, and the second, in which manipulative Belle abruptly leaves therapy, examines the analyst’s feelings when confronted with a therapeutic failure. In Joanna's story, the analyst experiences real fear. In Edgar’s she has the feeling that her body becomes large, soft, and grandmotherly during her sessions with her patient, who has come to her for help with an eating disorder. In both cases, her experiences lead her to insights about her patient’s problems. There’s less involvement with Jenny, a young woman disillusioned by a shattering encounter with her biological mother, but in the final story, the analyst finds that her presence has a powerful impact on the relationship of Carol and Maria, two lesbians in couple therapy. The image of the psychoanalyst as a remote Freudian figure impassively taking notes is effectively banished by Orbach’s depiction of her analyst as involved and affected, constantly considering and reconsidering her own reactions, and then using the knowledge so gained to understand and help her patients. A revealing, often surprising glimpse into the mind and emotions of one analyst and her participation in the therapeutic

process.