Tales from a traveling couch

After thirty-five years in practice, prominent New York psychotherapist and author Robert Akeret found himself in the thrall of a single question: Did therapy make a real difference in his patients' lives? So on a sunny morning in April Dr. Akeret got into his van and set off to visit his most memorable former patients - a journey "in search of story endings." And what remarkable stories they are:. Naomi, an abused young Jewish girl from the Bronx who transforms herself into a Spanish flamenco dancer named Isabella. Was this a symptom of multiple personality disorder? Or was Naomi's "new self" a lifesaving personality adaptation? "Who" was she now, in her mid-fifties? What about Charles, the animal trainer who fell madly in love with a circus polar bear? Had he been able to resist his fatal psychosexual attraction? What became of Seth, a man obsessed with sadomasochistic fantasies yet drawn to the love-in culture of the sixties? Which side of him had won? What of Sasha, the dashing prize-winning French novelist with writer's block and a penchant for exploiting women? In the end did his art prevail, or his life? And what became of Mary? Did she ever "murder" again? Like a brilliant psychological detective novel, this book tells these stories in fascinating detail while raising fundamental questions about psychotherapy. Does it work? Does it last? Are these questions even answerable? Returning home with his "story endings," Dr. Akeret finds that his journey has reshaped his ideas of what it means to have a rich and satisfying life.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Mental Health. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.