![]() I once worked with a counselor back in the 80's who, although in recovery from her alcoholism, went out and tried cocaine to see what all the hoopla was about. She also says that the counselors should be in the meetings as evidence of that shared suffering. She made no effort to explain WHY a person should go to meetings or WHAT the process was once one got there. People who are going to these groups benefit by working steps, not by talking about their personal view of their mess. To benefit, one must, in the language of the oldtimers, take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth. To the second issue, that everyone should go to AA or AlAnon or Relationships Anonymous: Not everyone fits. Anyone that limited in scope probably shouldn't be seeing anyone if all she wants to do is look in a mirror she has one at home. ![]() I once had a therapist tell me that she wanted referrals for married women of a certain educational standing and a certain income bracket. ![]() She is focusing on the content of the situation rather than the process of sickness and recovery. Is she saying that only kids can counsel kids, or that people of different races are of no use to others who are not of that race, or that women can't help men or men can't help women? That is very dismissive. She needs to have compassion, to understand the processes of suffering, to recognize pain, and to be able to aid the client in the path through that pain into a better state of being. To the first issue: A good therapist doesn't need to identify with every issue experienced by her client. This book seems to be an ongoing rant about three issues: that the author can ONLY speak to the needs of heterosexual white women who are involved in unhappy and unpleasant and unfulfilling relationships with men who often have addictions of their own, that all of these women should go to 12-step programs, preferably AA or AlAnon, and that she had to quit her job as a therapist because she could not stomach charging for her time when she got her recovery in a 12-step program for free. Norwood worked for several years as a therapist and by her accounts had entered into a 12-step program as a consequence of her personal recovery needs. The book and its predecessor were read by countless women back in the day. I have had this on the shelf for two decades and finally got around to reading it.
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