 Hello, welcome to BipTV. I'm with me for his annual book review or his weekly book review. It's Bob Cook from Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy. And we've got a real talk of a book today. It's by a perennial favourite author of people who study in the world of counselling and psychotherapy. And it's called Lying on the Couch, a novel by Irving Yolom. And I'm going to make a guess here. I think lying may very well have two meanings. I think it may be all not what it seems. Am I right, Bob? You're completely right. And I think this is number 60 book review. Yes. And it is, I think, is a very apt book. The last book of review I did was Love's Execution by Yolom. Yes. So you can see I'm a Yolom fan. Yes. Really big Yolom fan. And this book is a novel, so that's really important. And on the front page it says, you know, it's fiction. But I think, this is my fantasy, that the psychiatrist or the young psychiatrist or psychotherapist in this American wilderness was probably based on a young Irving Yolom. But that's my fantasy. But I think people who read this book might well see some of these existential pathways in this young therapist that is the centre of this book. Yes. Because it is, unlike a standard psychotherapy book, which talks about practice or observations, this is a novel, this is a novella story of a young psychotherapist. And there's experiences in practice. And the lying's interesting because I know that when we spoke off camera, there's a great story about a Rolex watch and a thousand dollars. Yeah, I'm going to just loosely tell you some of the strands in these stories. So this is a young psychotherapist learning his trade. And one of the things I really love about this book, to the extent that I will probably read it again, because I loved it so much, is the mind of this young psychotherapist explaining some of his thoughts, some of his will intuitions, which come from his psychoanalytical psychodynamic existential background. So he's talking about a lot of psychoanalytical ideas because he was part of the psychoanalytical movement, this young psychotherapist. And it's fascinating, fascinating to hear the richness of these psychoanalytical origins and thinkings with these clients. So for any therapist to begin to listen on paper, or if it's audible, which it was for me, the workings of the psychoanalytical, psychoanalyst thinking in terms of defences and how he would be with the young clients and practicing actually what this therapist called the true therapist. In other words, getting off the couch and talking in real terms to these clients he had. So that's what some of the stories about. He was going to be very real, working the counter-transference and being very honest with his clients. So this was the new sort of basis this young psychoanalyst was going to take. That's the sort of hub. However, of course, he runs into some problems and lying is one of them. So he had this one client, and we'll get to the Rolex watching in a minute, he had this one client who was the wife of another client that he had. And this other client and this wife split up, had a divorce, and the wife decided to get back at the husband or the ex-husband and decided to do this by going into therapy anonymously with the husband's therapist, who was this young new therapist we're talking about. So she came in anonymously and created a character and her idea was to seduce under the guise of erotic transference and get the new therapist who was the therapist of her husband to have a relationship with her and then report the therapist to the ethical regulating board. So in the process, she creates this huge web of lies and is very directive within the sexual transference to attempt to get the therapist off the chair onto the rug in the way. Off the couch and into bed. Yeah, so the lies become more and more and more interwoven. At the same time, this therapist has a supervisor and the supervisor also believes one of his therapists is a con man who signs on for six sessions of brief psychotherapy and after six sessions says, would you like to have some tips about these wonderful investments and shares and would you send over $90,000 and you can get $200,000 back and we'll cement this with a wonderful Rolex watch which I'll buy you. And this supervisor is the supervisor of this therapist buys all this, sends over $90,000, puts the Rolex watch on and then finds it's a con and there's no stocks and shares and there's no... and this Rolex walks. It's, you know, it's all a real... but it's interesting because, you know, in our loan and business, we are supposed to believe all the things that clients say to us. So one, we're holding the truth of the clients and at the other level, some of the things our clients tell us may be so bizarre it could be a question. But it's so interesting if you think about it, because how easy can it be for clients to do therapists if you think about it? Yes. And as I think about that, I think about many of the stories and tales I've been told my clients and I think, wow, part of me somewhere, I have this duality as, can this be actually true? And I've got it and of course it is because you have to believe the truth of the clients. So you've got this whole genesis going on and it's so interesting to see how the therapist and the supervisor actually think their way through this and of course all these stories get intertwined together. Yes, it's a proper morality tale, isn't it, Bob? Yes. It sounds like a classic Greek morality tale, doesn't it? Yes, Shakespearean. Like Shakespeare. Sophocles that have been proud of this, and say it's, you know, intrigue and sex and money and, you know... Money, greed, sex. They're all there. And again, I can't stress how much it's wonderful to listen to the nuances and the meandering and the psychanalytical talk inside the therapist's head. So for example, oh, he goes out, he goes to a book launch where he's got this new book being launched and he meets this woman who he lusts after and he's thinking, shall I actually make a move here? This is the therapist. Yeah, yeah. And then he decides not to. And sitting 100 yards away, it's this scheming new client he's taken on who's watching. And you know, all these things come back to haunt him. Haunt him in the therapeutic room. Oh, my God. It's like a pit in the pendulum, isn't it? It's like a kind of, you know... Poe, is it? Alexander Poe, I think, is it? I don't remember. How many of us get caught up in the... Or could get caught up in the erotic transference? Well, yes. I mean, erotic transference can... I mean, I'm not... I'm not someone who's got caught up in that. The role that's watching the bonds, I think... I think that... I think, you know, I'd hope that people can go for that. And I'm hoping that people watching don't think that being a counsellor of psychotherapists is kind of a salacious eroticism and high-finance because it isn't either of those in my experience. It's none of those, but you know what? Over the 35 years, Doug, and the thousands of client contact hours, you know, I've heard so many stories. I've had... There's nothing that will shock me. Absolutely. And then at the same time, I need to hold that as the client's tooth. Yeah. And what about the client who's actually... Well, you know, it's just a... It brings all those ethical issues. All the... To me, anyway, the familiarity of story, the familiarity of, uh, real old quandaries in the psychoanalyst's mind. It's so familiar to me. Well, yes. I mean, that's the attraction of the book, isn't it? Because I'm sure that, from what you've said, anybody who's been practicing for a few years will relate at some level to some of the stories. And then in terms of believing... Clients, of course, we always believe clients. But there are times when, like, as you say, client stories can be so fantastic and so... Unbelievable. Unbelievably alarming in some cases. Yes, yeah. That, you know, you couldn't... You probably won't see it in a soap opera or read it in a book. No, and this is another one. I'll give you two more very quickly. I know because of the time, but I like... There's another whole issue about, um, meeting clients, uh, after time or phoning them up at 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock and not because they're suicidal and they're going to kill themselves. Uh, they text policies and they keep texting and texting and texting. And suddenly they're outside their door in a camper van from, uh, going over the 15 minutes to... It's now 17 minutes and then it's 18 minutes, but he can't get rid of the crime because we could go on and on. Yeah. And how have we therapist and the psychoanalysts been musing about what to do about it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So lying on the couch by Irving Yalom... I've got lots of energy for it. Lots of energy for that. It is a novel. It's not a kind of, like, a clinical book, but it is a novel, but it seems to have some kind of existential truth in it. Yes, I think so. As usual, put a link in the comments bar below so people can examine it. And as always, Bob doesn't get paid for book reviews. Does it for the love of it. And, you know, let's have some comments in the comments bar below. Have you read this book? Have you ever found a Irving Yalom? In which case, which book do you like? And we'll see you in book review 61. Won't we, Bob? Yeah. And I just want to think, this is my favourite book of the year. Well, there we go. There you have it. Book of 2018. As always, Bob, thank you very much. Thank you.