Taylor and Francis The Power of Witnessing

"We can be grateful for the publication of this book. It serves not only as a reminder of a deplorable human conflagration that Pines and others have urged us not to forget, but also as a reminder that we psychoanalysts need to resist the pull to overlook or deny the impact of external reality upon our patients. The book represents a counterweight to the unfortunate tendency that has arisen within our professionto overvalorize the here-and-now interaction between patient and therapist, to the exclusion of appreciating what the patient has experienced en route to the analyst’s office. " The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 2014 "Goodman and Meyers’s primarily experiential book stands testament to the power of witnessing. It allows readers to imagine what it might have been like to have experienced the unimaginable. The editors’ passion and dedication to their mission to keep the memory of the Holocaust experience alive in the minds of the living is impressive, scholarly, and creative. Their book will be of value to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts treating patients with traumatic experiences of varying degrees of severity." -Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association "This book manages to include many different voices and perspectives on the large subject of witnessing. There is much to be learned from this collection. Readers of this book will be challenged in unexpected ways. Memories may be stirred, and genealogies may be questioned. The editors are to be applauded for their choices and for bringing together all of this material in one volume." –Division Review "Witnessing is indeed a process that involves experiencing the trauma. Goodman and Meyers' work with survivors and their children is an area that we need to continually observe. But it is not just the Holocaust that needs repeated witnessing—it is all areas of trauma. The Power of Witnessing focuses on the intimacy of the therapist with the survivor, which in turn helps widen the survivor's awareness of the residues and their continuing influences. This witnessing makes possible resilience." - Henry Krystal, M.D., author, Integration and Self-Healing (The Analytic Press, 1993) "Witnessing—most readily thought of in terms of the Holocaust—is actually a vital intersubjective phenomenon that is central to the way that the interpersonal process facilitates individual consolidation and growth. As does a clinical analysis, so does this piercingly wise study of witnessing engage the reader in the active emotional experience of learning, leading one to know from both inside and outside, to understand from new depths. The contributions within this work expose not only the impact of trauma but, importantly, how the very act of witnessing is itself essential to life, to change, and to growth. It was so for me and I believe will be so for others: The reader of this powerful contribution will learn and will be enriched by the learning." - Warren S. Poland, author,Melting the Darkness (Jason... ...