Recommended. Author is Israeli psychologist; lives and teaches in Ohio. Book was written in Hebrew. There is an entertaining interview of him at the BBC. Well-crafted novel and introduction to psychotherapy. I haven't read anything like this since the heroic psychiatrist novels of the 40s and 50s (Snake Pit, Captain Newman, MD, etc.) - not really the same, though. ( )

Ein humorvoller und kluger Roman über die geheimnisvolle Welt der Psychotherapie Er ist Psychologe, sein Spezialgebiet die Angst. Am Tag praktiziert er, am Abend erklärt er Studenten, was eine gute Therapie ausmacht. Als er wenig begeistert eine Nachtclubtänzerin mit Auftrittsphobie als Klientin annimmt, ahnt er nicht, wie sehr deren Probleme und Geheimnisse auf sein eigenes Leben abstrahlen werden. Sie kommt freitags um vier, und für sie hat der Psychologe eine Ausnahme gemacht, denn eigentlich arbeitet er nur bis drei. Doch der Fall der Nachtclubtänzerin, die wegen Panikattacken auf der Bühne nicht mehr auftreten kann, interessiert ihn. Über ihren Fall kann er mit seiner Kollegin Nina sprechen. Das lässt Nina zu. Nicht aber, dass er über seine Liebe zu ihr redet. Obwohl es ein gemeinsames Kind gibt. Der Psychologe versucht, seine Gefühle im Zaum zu halten. Er predigt seinen Studenten, was ein guter Psychologe alles können muss. Was er auf keinen Fall tun darf. Und dann passiert es ihm doch: Die Grenze zwischen dem Persönlichen und dem Professionellen wird auf gefährliche Art verwischt. Ein köstlicher und lehrreicher Roman über die Widersprüche zwischen Theorie und Praxis, über das Chaos im eigenen Gefühlshaushalt und über das Einzige, was wirklich zählt im Leben: die Liebe in all ihren Erscheinungsformen.

I loved this book. It isn't a mystery or a thriller so definitely don't expect either of these but rather it is a journal or diary. It is told anonymously to encompass every psychotherapist.
Alternating between his personal life, his teaching psychotherapy at the university and his professional practice the reader becomes "a fly of the wall" in the psychologist's life. It is real life, not glamorized or sensationalized but the events that might actually happen from paying a high price to get a piano tuner to tune an old piano or having a student help you to start your car.
I found it very refreshing. I would recommend it to anyone who is very interested in psychological theories and the psychotherapy process. You will also enjoy it if you believe life doesn't always end up "happily ever after" and that day to day activities are just as important as the exciting times in one's life. ( )

Good premise, not great execution. He had an affair with a married colleague who decided to have a baby with him and raise it with her husband, and so then left our hero. Now he has a difficult patient in therapy and gets advice from his former lover, but then intrudes on her life, and then intrudes on his patient's life, but nothing much happened in either case. Very inappropriate therapeutic behavior, watching his patient strip and dance suggestively in front of him, and very cringe-making description of same.

The structure of the book, with lectures from his psychotherapy class interspersed, is again a good idea but poorly executed - the lectures were dry and rather elementary. ( )

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Noam Shpancer's stunning debut novel opens as a psychologist reluctantly takes on a new client—an exotic dancer whose severe anxiety is keeping her from the stage. The psychologist, a solitary professional who also teaches a lively night class, helps the client confront her fears. But as treatment unfolds, her struggles and secrets begin to radiate onto his life, upsetting the precarious balance in his unresolved relationship with Nina, a married former colleague with whom he has a child—a child he has never met. As the shell of his detachment begins to crack, he suddenly finds himself too deeply involved, the boundary lines between professional and personal, between help and harm, blurring dangerously.

With its wonderfully distinctive narrative voice, rich with humor and humanity, The Good Psychologist leads the reader on a journey into the heart of the therapy process and beyond, examining some of the fundamental questions of the soul: to move or be still; to defy or obey; to let go or hold on.

My Review: Wonderful line-by-line writing! Lovely images, and a very delicate hand at description. Characters that make an impression on your readerly senses.

But not a novel, really. More like the internalized effects of living a life in the psychologist's seat made into an essay. Not so much acted out as acted. The unnamed psychologist, a damned decent man, can be summed up in one clean metaphor: He finds a broken-down old piano, hauls it home, and gets a professional piano-tuner to come and fix its battered old carcass up. The tuner, being a responsible sort, says the Good Psychologist could go get a new piano for less than it'll cost to bring the old one back to life. The psychologist thanks him, and orders the remake to proceed. It does. Beautiful music ensues.

Well, that's it, really. Not that this is in any way a bad book, but it would HUGELY irritate me to pay twenty-four United States dollars for it. Twelve, yes. MAYbe fourteen. Over twenty? Oh HELL no.

First novels, such as this is, published initially in harcover are a bad idea, in this climate of frugality and underemployment. Take heed, publishers, and move to a trade paper format.

How interested are you in the inner life of a shrink? If very, buy the book. If mildly, don't.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. ( )