Overcoming the Destructive Inner Voice: True Stories of Therapy and Transformation

In his book Overcoming the Destructive Inner Voice psychotherapist and psychologist Robert Firestone relates eleven true but fictionalized stories from his practice with patients. All are totally different and fascinating. Luckily, Firestone is a good writer, and his case histories read well and easily. Even though this is a scholarly book with extensive notes, a bibliography, and a list of resources, these stories are interesting readings for a layperson—eleven mesmerizing therapy stories with different problems and different therapeutic treatments, like one with a patient who threatened to kill the therapist or one with a druggie who threatened to kill his mother, showing an intimate connection between suicide and violence, and so on. Firestone’s main purpose is to demonstrate the distinctive merits of psychotherapy. His methodology is mainly voice therapy focusing on the patient’s self-attack and determines their source. Not all stories end on a cheerful note—some therapies were not successful, yet all case histories give the patients’ mental struggle and inner voice, and the interesting way the therapist deals with the problem. This book is a good addition to both psychotherapist’s and academic library’s collections and is also great for general readers interested in the subject.