Product Description

From the bestselling author of Love's Executioner and When Nietzsche Wept comes a provocative exploration of the unusual relationships three therapists form with their patients. Seymour is a therapist of the old school who blurs the boundary of sexual propriety with one of his clients. Marshal, who is haunted by his own obsessive-compulsive behaviors, is troubled by the role money plays in his dealings with his patients. Finally, there is Ernest Lash. Driven by his sincere desire to help and his faith in psychoanalysis, he invents a radically new approach to therapy -- a totally open and honest relationship with a patient that threatens to have devastating results.

Exposing the many lies that are told on and off the psychoanalyst's couch, Lying on the Couch gives readers a tantalizing, almost illicit, glimpse at what their therapists might really be thinking during their sessions. Fascinating, engrossing and relentlessly intelligent, it ultimately moves readers with a denouement of surprising humanity and redemptive faith.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27743 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08-27
• Released on: 1997-07-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.com
There is plenty of lying going on in psychotherapy offices to be found in Irvin D. Yalom's novel Lying on the Couch, and the lying is of every type defined in your average modern dictionary. Among those doing the lying are Carolyn, who hopes to ruin the career of psychotherapist Ernest Lash because she believes his advice led her husband to seek a divorce. Then there is the gambler whose plan is to lure another psychotherapist into malpractice so he can sue and pay off his debts. In Yalom's world, the relationship between therapist and patient is a tricky one indeed, and it's sometimes hard to tell who needs advice and counseling more--the patient lying on the couch or therapist sitting nearby.

From Publishers Weekly
A willingness to confess to his various mistakes in the course of treating patients made Dr. Yalom's 1989 nonfiction bestseller, Love's Executioner & Other Tales of Psychotherapy, endearing, but one hopes that this satire of the Bay Area psychiatric industry is not another mea culpa in disguise. The two psychiatrists at the center of Yalom's second novel (after When Nietzsche Wept) find themselves entangled in situations for which their clinical training could not have prepared them. Dr. Ernest Lash, who is, in fact, extremely earnest and given to wearing earth shoes and stained ties, decides to experiment with a new, more intimate therapeutic approach, unwittingly playing into the hands of Carol Leftman, a patient determined to ruin his professional reputation because he had encouraged her husband to leave her. Meanwhile, Ernest's former supervisor, the ambitious, self-important Dr. Marshal Streider, is fleeced by a charismatic con man masquerading as a patient. For help, Marshal turns to a lawyer?the very same Carol Leftman who's dogging Ernest. For both Marshal and Ernest, then, the absolute honesty they demand during the therapeutic hour is at odds with the professional ethic of confidentiality that binds both lawyers and shrinks. Yalom is exploring the jungles of what Ernest calls "wildcat therapy," in which therapists are unable to maintain the Olympian mantle of clinical disinterest in encounters with their patients. Whether this is good medicine or not, Yalom doesn't quite say. As absorbing as it is, the novel presents the moral or professional blunders of the analysts as the acceptable price of doing business. $50,000 ad/promo; author tour; Rights: William Morris Agency.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
It's laudable when a person successful in one field tries a hand at another, but based on his sophomoric second novel (following When Nietzsche Wept, Basic, 1992), Yalom shouldn't give up his psychiatry practice to write fiction. Yalom limns the lives of a group of whining psychoanalysts as they variously cope with accusations of sexual misconduct, fall victim to con men, deal with issues of counter-transference, and come under suspicion by their colleagues for false interpretations of Freudian theory. Dr. Ernest Lash, the novel's hero, abandons his psychoanalytic training and develops a new type of therapy in which he attempts to establish an honest and authentic relationship with his patient, offering advice and support rather than limiting his discourse to interpretations of the patient's dreams and feelings. Therapy veterans and those readers who enjoyed Yalom's nonfiction (e.g., Love's Executioner & Other Tales of Psychotherapy, LJ 8/89) may start this novel, but its disjointed style and cardboard characters will fast discourage them from finishing it. Not recommended.?Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Tantalizing fun
I enjoyed this book very much. It has many elements which make it interesting and clever to boot. Everyone gets a little something.

Lying on the Couch
Excellent. Well written & highly recommneded.
At times it felt so real that it was hard to tell the real bits vrs fiction.

More Engaging Than Actual Therapy
Irvin Yalom made a name for himself as the author of a few of the more important texts in the field of psychotherapy, such as EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY and THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY. Evidence for his writing ability came in the form of tales of therapy for the lay audience, such as LOVE'S EXECUTIONER. It was only a small step thereafter to become the novelist he always wanted to be.

Yalom's first novel, WHEN NIETZSCHE WEPT, was a good showing out of the gate. Yet the book seemed just a tad too pretentious, like it was trying to show off just how smart it was. With LYING ON THE COUCH, Yalom hits his mark better, producing an excellent slice of fiction about the world of psychotherapists and their clients.

Two therapists, Ernest Lash and Marshal Streider, form the backbone of the book as Yalom explores the minefield of the therapuetic relationship. This minefield is even more dangerous as their clients, true to the double entendre of the title, really are lying on the couch - lying through their teeth for very different reasons.

Lash's client is Carolyn, who blames Lash for her husband's leaving her. Her attempts to entrap Lash in order to ruin him allow for a rich environment for Yalom to tap into. Yalom does not waste the opportunity. The twists and turns that the therapist takes with the client are matched by the psychological chess match being played between them, even if only one knows what the true game is.

Streider's client, in another malevolent twist, is a con man seeking a scam. Credit to Yalom is due here. I have seen my fair share of con men movies and read my share of stories about them as well. Yet Yalom weaves one that would make Mamet turn green with envy. Delicious!

I am a fan of what Tom Wolfe calls the realistic novel, in which a fictitious story is used to illuminate an accurate slice of Americana. LYING ON THE COUCH seems close to such a novel, though perhaps only at the edges. In its portrayal of the subculture of therapists and the milieu in which they practice their craft, it is close enough. It is a very enjoyable book.