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Textbook of Family and Couples Therapy: Clinical Applications

2004; American Psychiatric Association; Volume: 58; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2004.58.2.242

2575-6559

Robert L. Beck,

Child Therapy and Development

one of the 18 survivors and their stories and I had audio-visually taped a number of them in the early 1980s.I could see them before me as I read.Some have passed away.There is great value in Dr. Gallant's committing their stories to paper as a permanent collection of recollections.However, the sociological context for framing those accounts does not work well, perhaps due to my unfamiliarity with the terminology and style, e.g., "Interactional emergents are ideas suggested by interactional episodes that serendipitously allow for the creation of survival strategies.They are innovative bits of the discursive stream between self and other that help challenged identity form .... Survival communality is a field of meaning that fosters social solidarity and fellow feeling among the oppressed so that they may bring off a countercultural effect that supports rather than undermines their survival in a setting inimical to it."(p.277)Although the language used is at times formidable, overall it is a work of value, certainly for its survivor narratives and the author's insightful commentary.As Gallant states, "the goal of this narrative analysis of surviving the Holocaust is to provide insight into the social dimensions of surviving extremity."I am not sure whether that goal was achieved but the attempt made proves worthwhile in any case.The author has succeeded in providing another "fragment" of information to add to the knowledge base required to examine this formidable topic.When the second edition arrives, I hope it will have been reedited for its excessive wordiness and for easily noted misspellings, as, for example, exhilaration in the Preface.There are terms that mystify, such as in the sentence "This makes for a construal of the trauma landscape in the narratives," and "His elision of Auschwitz with Theresienstadt is telling" (p.30), when the survivor had simply meant to say, Theresienstadt.If his slip is to be noted, then so should the author's on p. 52: "There were still no comfortable answers for him to the questions that started with his betrayal by his childhood friends in that first fistfight long ago-no final solutions" (my italics).I would recommend this book to fellow Mental Health professionals with some reservations, but unreservedly to high school and university/college students for its excellent eyewitness narratives.They stand free from construct or jargon and the author has done an exceptional job of capturing their experiences.