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Jul
12
Book Review: CRAZY by Rob Dobrenski
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
This review originally appeared in Shelf Awareness June 21, 2011.
Published June 2011 by Lyons Press
Working from 15 years’ experience, psychologist Rob Dobrenski (Shrink Talk) makes his literary debut with Crazy, a memoir intended to “debunk some myths and stigmas about mental health.” Dobrenski contends that the greatest myth of all is that therapists are trouble free and clients filled with problems. He wants the public to know that “in reality, we’re just like them: crazy.”
Crazy is presented as a day-in-the-life, in which each hour features Dobrenski’s treatment of a new client with a different issue. Among them are a blind man battling depression, a rape survivor dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and a couple contemplating divorce. Chapter by chapter, Dobrenski describes his diagnosis and therapeutic approach in a casual, informative style that demystifies much of what happens when one lies down on the proverbial couch, and in a bold–if not entirely reassuring–move, he breaks from behind the screen to discuss his own experiences in therapy and the use of medication within the mental health community. Readers familiar with Henri Nouwen’s groundbreaking The Wounded Healer will recognize Dobrenski’s message: “Shrinks are people, too!”
If his extensive use of expletives is any indication, Dobrenski is determined to prove it. His dialogue and clinical definitions are sometimes clunky and didactic, but his goal of normalizing psychological problems and putting them on par with physical ailments that require medical intervention is a worthy one that makes the flaws forgivable. Crazy is a solid step in the right direction of reminding patients that treatment can be a two-way street
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