Brooklyn Zoo: The Education of a Psychotherapist

Clinical psychologist and journalist Lockman writes about her intern year at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital, detailing her rotations in forensic psychology, the psych. emergency room, an inpatient unit, and as a “consultation liaison” with medical staff. She captures the hopeless dreariness of the place—the inpatient unit is “a large stale-smelling place with... cold white concrete floors and rusty-paned windows that did not open.” Above all, Lockman illustrates how difficult it is to engage patients with serious psychiatric illnesses. She asks one patient about her sleep and appetite—possible signs of mental disorder—and the patient responds, “You’re a nosy one, aren’t you?” Lockman is candid about her frustrations (and all too occasional small triumphs) with patients, as well as with absent or burned-out supervisors. She says that psychological insights were often trumped by psychiatry’s biomedical model. Although crisply written, there are too many brief interactions with too many patients, perhaps reflecting the nature of the work. Exemplified by a reference to “my masochistic defenses,” she sometimes alludes to her own psychological dynamics without adequately explaining her personal interactions. Still, this is a useful, sometimes memorable, look at the vagaries of a psychologist’s training and role in an overwhelming institutional setting. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House. (July)