cover image The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases and What They Teach Us about Human Behavior

The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases and What They Teach Us about Human Behavior

Jeffrey A. Kottler, PH.. Jossey-Bass, $24.95 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-7879-6541-9

The editors of Bad Therapy: Master Therapists Share their Worst Failures return with thirty-two interview-based, doctor-and-patient case studies. This time out they do more framing of the cases in their shared voice, and lead off with two of their own cases,""The Man Who Wanted His Nose Cut Off"" because he was having an affair with a cow and""The Mummy at the Dining Room Table"" whose family wouldn't let her go. Some of the therapists they present are well known, such as Albert Ellis (""The Woman Who Hated Everyone and Everything"") and William Glasser (""The Urge to Eat from Garbage Cans""). Hypnotherapist Pat Love performed""An Emergency Hypnosis to Solve the Crime at the Burger Joint."" A gender therapist (not to be confused with a sex therapist) weighs in: a gay man and lesbian who were happily married to each other are here said to produce""The Third Sexual Identity."" Some of the cases are grim, not all are equally informative, and terms by which they are discussed can sometimes feel as glib as the chapter titles. But the overall sense one gets is of human beings interacting, and learning from and about each other.