Any therapist who has suffered through the often-energetic efforts at seduction some patients carry out (often for months), and through (as well) his (or her) own desires for those he (or she) would find appealing if met outside therapy, knows that the politically-correct story of sex in psychotherapy cannot be the whole story. People meet wherever they meet, and people fall in love or just have sex for all sorts of good and bad reasons, and both therapist and patient are people. While insisting on the incompatibility of sex and therapy, Dr. Baur explores this difficult area honestly, fully, and with a wise, open eye to the full human dimensions of the problem. Not the least appalling dimension of the problem is the profession's unwillingness to treat the subject honestly and help its members, its customers, and the public deal intelligently with the realities of the sexuality of both patient and therapist. Dr. Baur's book is the first great step toward telling the truth and remedying that problem. Eas

In this brilliant, exhaustive, scholarly work, Dr. Susan Baur thoroughly examines the roles that love and sex have played in the psychotherapeutic relationship. While making it clear that sex has no place in psychotherapy, she takes us on a fascinating journey through history up to the present, so-called feminization of psychotherapy. She shows us, compassionately and sensitively, that this delicate topic is not as clear-cut as most people like to believe. Dr. Baur poses the question of what direction we, as a society, will steer the process of psychotherapy, considering the issues of managed care and the trend toward shorter-term therapy. Impressed by Dr. Baur's indefatigable research, this insightful and compelling book has broadened my perspective regarding psychotherapy and how the ingredients of love, intimacy, and human nature all shape the process. A courageous undertaking of a most controversial topic.

A year ago the love of my life left me and I thought I would never understand why or be able to love again until a friend gave me The Love of Your Life by Susan Baur. This book, based on 200 stories of great love among ordinary people, shows that many stormy, passionate romances have a hard time turning themselves into a lifelong partnership. However, that doesn't mean they are unimportant or that they aren't real love. Reading the stories of lucky and unlucky lovers, I could finally see that what's truly lucky is the chance to be swept away in a love that teaches us to see the world in a new way. It's tough to care for a man with all your heart and soul yet have no control over what he'll do with your heart. Yet now I see that heart-throb or heartbreak, the love of your life is an experience not to be missed. As the book says, the love of a lifetime can lead to a lifetime of love.

What a deeply personal, moving book! With three kids, two on the dating scene, I wanted to get back in touch with the feelings that I had when I was their age. Believe me, I wouldn't want to slip into their shoes for a minute. Finding Dr. Baur's book has brought me back in touch with my own feelings and is helping me be an encouraging parent through this wonderful and sometimes confusing time in my children's lives. The book lived up to my expectations right in the first few pages when she poignantly discusses how her son met the "love of his life." Whether you're looking for the "love of your life" or are watching life unfold for the ones you love, this book is a cherished gift to read. I'm deeply thankful for Dr. Baur's research on her subjects of all ages and personal reflections.

Written in the 1980s, Hypochondria gives good case studies of individuals who have been afflicted with hypochondriasis, such as James Boswell and Samuel Johnson. The sections on treatment, however, aren't very helpful for most hypochondriacs, because the author has an obvious preference for psychodynamic theories - e.g., finding the root cause of hypochondriasis in your relationships, suppressed emotions, parent-child relationships, etc. Her descriptions of behavioral therapy and neuro-psychiatric approaches to hypochondria are rather dismissive - for example, she chides behavioralists for changing behaviors without providing the patient with an understanding of how their emotional lives work (this, of course, assumes that mental disorders arise from emotional problems). Neuropsychiatric views - that mania and anxiety disorders are caused by chemical imbalances - are dismissed as "reductionistic and clearly transitory" approaches to mental illness. Overall, the book's clinical information is dated - anxiety disorders are mentioned only in passing, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which is virutally identical to hypochondria in many cases, isn't even mentioned at all. (Johnson, for example, clearly suffered from OCD, and perhaps Tourette's Syndrome as well). The strength of the book remains with its case studies, particularly that of Boswell.

Hypochondria aims to be an exhaustive overview of theories and approaches to psychosomatic illnesses, but the information in this book is becoming extremely dated. Judging by its contents, the book appears to have been written during the first days of Psychiatry's paradigm shift away from Freud's ideas toward neurological and behavioral approaches that are now predominant. As a result, the author generically categorizes all forms of hypochondria as resultant from repressed emotional trauma and maladaptive social coping strategies, while barely making a nod toward anxiety disorders and chemical imbalances. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Body Dismorphic Disorder aren't even mentioned once in the entire book.) This lack of insight is especially startling when some of her case studies, such as Samuel Johnson, clearly had OCD.

For hypochondriacs looking to overcome their disease, the book offers insight strictly to those who use freigned illnesses as a coping technique. (Stereotypically, this would be the hysterical middle-aged woman who always suffers from a vague malaise that she can't help talking about.) For those with more intractable, destructive forms of hypochondriasis that arise from obsessive-compulsive behavior, the book offers very little.

Baur, a psychologist,efficiently examines the 'woeful imaginings' of the hypochondriac -- from mostly historical perspectives. A chapter on world-class hypochondriac James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson, is a highlight, as is a chapter on European treatments and philosophies of this malady. Imagined illness' role in childhood, among the elderly, in other cultures; its function in relationships -- all discussed. The historic stuff is great. The book falters on the contemporary problems of hypochondria. Baur's clinical approach seems sensible and pragmatic, and I would suspect that it doesn't work.Can hypochondriacs really 'unlearn' it? I wish she had dug a little deeper in her final chapter, "Getting Better." Definitely worth reading.

A must read for those who don't understand what psychotic delusion is.