The author, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, draws on many years of experience with artists referred to him for treatment through a nonprofit organization in New York City which makes such referrals for artists needing affordable counseling. He describes and illustrates with case studies some of the distinctive dilemmas of this population. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Patient

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Alper, Gerald

Psychology & Counseling

Basic Books

The Incredible Shrinking Mind: What Happens When The Human Equation Gets Lost

The Incredible Shrinking Mind

Mental Health

Routledge

Self Defense in a Narcissistic World explores in depth a new, basically unrecognized and highly prevalent everyday addiction: power trips. The disastrous consequences of this simple, but insidious, largely unconscious cultural and psychological phenomenon are candidly revealed by author Gerald Alper.

Self Defense in a Narcissistic World: The New Everyday Addiction to Power Trips

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

University Press of America

Knowing If It's the Real Thing: Discovering the Roots of Intimacy

In this exciting and original work, Gerald Alper, illuminates the crucial elements that together constitute intimacy. Knowing If It's the Real Thing offers a radical departure from today's popular, yet mythological belief that if two people stay together, in an adaptive, productive, and moderately mutually enhancing way, they will achieve the most a relationship can offer. Some issues discussed in the book are the basic ingredients and rudimentary ground rules of "postmodern intimacy;" how to discover the arena in which one feels most comfortable in expressing intimate feelings; the many ways that sincere efforts to connect can completely misfire; and how to build up defenses, dodge self-reproach, and retain one's dignity and sense of trust following a serious break-up.

Parenting & Relationships

Taylor Trade Publishing

In his nearly twenty-five years as a practicing psychotherapist, Gerald Alper has found that personal intimacy is the single most prized yet inherently problematic element of human interaction, and that the avoidance of intimacy is the paradigmatic conflict of our age. And once it is finally discovered, how can one tell if it’s true intimacy? Knowing If It’s the Real Thing establishes how one’s upbringing—particularly during adolescence—is the most significant factor in determining their ability to give and receive love; and by providing a thorough and multidimensional mosaic presentation of what intimacy is not, shows us how to recognize the fundamental ingredients of, and obstacles to, that elusive goal. Withrefreshing candor, Alper also illuminates the role between patient and therapist as it relates to intimacy, and shares anecdotal accounts of his most challenging and rewarding cases in chapters such as “Drowning Out the Other,” “The ParanoidMoment,” “I Did It My Way,” “I Can’t Commit,” and “Is This the One?”These insights offer comfort and direction for those looking to supercharge their love life and better understand themselves and their relationships.

Self-Help

Relationships

Dr. Alper relates and analyzes three cases which come out of his practice as a psychotherapist. All three cases represent important aspects of our society and have the texture of lived experience. Matthew, in a story that both precedes and anticipates the David Koresh disaster in Waco, Texas, becomes a disciple of a counterculture cult in which he searches for a higher mode of life. Paul tries to climb up the ladder of success and finds himself in a telemarketing sweatshop. Emily yearns for romantic fulfillment and gets caught in the trap of obsessive love. In the final chapter, Alper weaves together the common elements of these three stories - the pattern of seduction, manipulation, and obsessive control. His arguments make shockingly clear that behavioral puppetry is not merely the occasional aberrant phenomenon about which we read in the newspapers, but that it runs through nearly every stratum of our society.

The Puppeteers: Studies of Obsessive Control

Fromm Intl

Argues that modern society sets up obstacles to true intimacy and shows how individuals, especially young singles, try to establish control as they simultaneously seek and try to avoid intimacy

Control Games: Avoiding Intimacy on the Singles Scene

Jason Aronson, Inc.

The Dark Side of the Analytic Moon transports the reader to the other side of the couch where the dynamics of what it means to be taught how to explore the unconscious minds of strangers while having your own personality systematically scrutinized from all angles are presented with unprecedented candor and clarity. In this new book, Gerald Alper, whose The New England Reviews of Books called portrait of the Artist as a Young Patient 'one of the most important modern studies of the psyche of the creative personality that we have,' and who possesses, according to Dr. Jerome Levin of the Pots-Graduate Center for Mental Health, 'one of the more creative analytic minds of his generation,' brilliantly illuminates the secret life of the therapist.

The Dark Side of the Analytic Moon: A Memoir of Life in a Training Institute

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

International Scholars Publications

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patient, the first book of non-fiction written by Gerald Alper, is also the first serious attempt to explore in depth the dynamics of the yet-to-be recognized, unfulfilled and usually perplexed fledgling artist. The artist tries to live in two separate worlds: a factual, linear, banal, reality-driven outer world that is best kept at arm's length; and a creatively organized, aesthetically orchestrated, dramatically engaging inner world that is forever being obsessively cultivated. Indeed, facilitating the patient in his or her efforts to forge a usable bridge between these generally discontinuous worlds is no small part of the task of the therapist who elects to work with such young artists.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patient: Psychodynamic Studies of the Creative Personality

Power Plays: Their Uses and Abuses in Human Relations

A timely and original contribution to understanding the power operations between people in a non-political, interpersonal, eclectic and psychodynamic basis. This dynamic new study deals with issues of self-renewal, personal marketing, making changes and taking charge of the personal franchise we all have.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Alper, Gerald. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Alper, Gerald

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Alper, Gerald. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Patient

The Incredible Shrinking Mind

Self Defense in a Narcissistic World: The New Everyday Addiction to Power Trips

Knowing If It's the Real Thing: Discovering the Roots of Intimacy

Knowing If It's the Real Thing: Discovering the Roots of Intimacy

The Puppeteers: Studies of Obsessive Control

Control Games: Avoiding Intimacy on the Singles Scene

The Dark Side of the Analytic Moon: A Memoir of Life in a Training Institute

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patient: Psychodynamic Studies of the Creative Personality

Power Plays: Their Uses and Abuses in Human Relations