Description
From America’s most well-known psychiatrist . . .
To Wrestle With Demons offers a rare glimpse of this healer’s innermost thoughts about how his work affects patients, deeply moves him, and reflects the society in which we live.
Describing the unconscious as music, Dr. Ablow recalls the process of helping patients ferret out the past from the deep recesses of their minds. In so doing, he becomes enchanted with “the subtlety and power of human interaction.” He describes the lonely gentleman who, gaining a sense of security from hearing voices, refuses the medication that would take them away…the depressed woman whose extreme dependence on others is rooted in a violent and abusive childhood…the doting husband whose obsessive devotion to his ill wife harks back to the tragic loss of a childhood friend.
Dr. Ablow speaks with unabashed candor about the guilt he feels exchanging empathy for money, his struggle to help a homeless veteran, and the embarrassment of warning a mother of her son’s intent to kill her. Through his eyes, the reader confronts a patient’s suicide and a close colleague’s murder.
While sharing these private revelations, Dr. Ablow provides to us all a looking glass to society. Discussed here, among many issues are poverty, the insanity defense, patients’ rights, and changing medical economics. Captured is the critical moment which psychiatry now finds itself – attempting to integrate technology with spirituality, science with the soul, and economics with empathy.
To Wrestle With Demons offers anyone who has ever wondered whether psychiatrists truly care about the lives of their patients a resounding “yes”. Gryphon Editions is proud to release this title as a special leather bound edition personally signed by Dr. Ablow.
