Book Review of Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47634/cjcp.v57i`1.76378

Abstract

Rachel Aviv, a staff writer at The New Yorker, explores the roles and inadequacies of stories in accounting for and shaping the lives of people “unsettled” by crisis and mental distress. Through six evocative case examples, including her own experience of being diagnosed with anorexia at age 6, she highlights the complexities and centrality of narrative meaning making by clients and professionals when they address mental health concerns. Such stories made out of distress not only implicate the identities of clients and professionals but also change with different medical and cultural developments. This is a book that will interest and perhaps perplex counsellors who have embraced narrative ideas and practices.

Author Biography

Tom Strong, University of Calgary

Tom Strong is a professor emeritus and a psychologist from the University of Calgary. He writes on the collaborative, critical, and practical potentials of discursive approaches to psychotherapy and counselling. Currently, he is co-editing The Routledge International Handbook of Postmodern Therapies.

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Published

2024-07-15

How to Cite

Strong, T. (2024). Book Review of Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 57(1), 127–130. https://doi.org/10.47634/cjcp.v57i`1.76378

Issue

Section

Book Reviews/ Comptes rendus