Description
Book SynopsisPower Games is a brilliant exploration of the psychodynamic strategies unconsciously enacted to spare the person the imagined pain and frustration of an authentic encounter. Although such strategic power operations can be characterological, they do not have to be: all people, even those rare individuals who are capable of ongoing intimacy, are forced at moments of fraility or interpersonal indecisiveness to play power games, and certainly the culture at large pervasively sponsors the enactment of opportunistic interpersonal strategies. In this new book, Gerald Alper, whose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patientwas called by the New England Review of Books "one of the most important modern studies of the psyche of the creative personality that we have," continues his profound examination of the obstacles that stand in the path of the true intimacy.
Trade ReviewGerald Alper never writes dull books. A novelist and short story writer turned psychotherapist, he has one of the more creative analytic minds of his generation. -- Jerome David Levin, Faculty Supervisor, Post-Graduate Center for Mental Health, New York
Just as theoreticians have sought a Unified Field Theory in physics, Alper is chipping away at his own Unified Theory on the nature of personality and the growth-promoting factors of psychotherapy. -- Carol Stark, MD,
Alper's books represent a crowning contribution to the psychology of creativity in psychotherapy. -- Erwin Randolph Parson, Editor, Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Zero-Sum Relating Chapter 3 Who Wins, Who Loses Chapter 4 When Therapy Becomes a Power Struggle Chapter 5 Conclusion; References; Index
