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THE THERAPIST PSYCHOLOGIST BOOK STORE
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Songs from the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors (American Lives) By Charles Barber ( Bison Books )
Release Date: 2007-03-01
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $16.95
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Product Description
Day after day, night after night, desperate men come to sit in the black chair next to Charles Barber’s desk in a basement office at Bellevue and tell of their travails, of prison and disease, of violence and the voices that plague them. Between the stories, amid the peeling paint, musty odor, and flickering fluorescent light of his office, Barber observes that this isn’t really where he is supposed to be and reveals his privileged youth in contrast to his own nightmare of mental illness. By relating these troubled lives to his own, Barber illuminates some of the most disturbing and enduring truths of human nature.
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 A great story teller ( michaeldg )
This book is a great read. From the opening scenes of a suicide in a New England farmhouse to the following chapters that tell of youthful adventures and the descent into madness, Charlie Barber knows how carry us through what would have been tortuous material in less skilled hands. This book gives us a personal account of the terrors of mental illness and loss of control over ones thoughts and destiny. The slow path to healing, and the refreshing acknowlegement of how medications brought back his sanity are a welcome departure from the usual rants against the medical industrial complex. I also greatly enjoyed the view of the sleepy college town and the caring yet uncomprehending parents that all of us can identify with, both as teens and as uncomprehending parents. I highly recommend this book.
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 Singing the same old tune
This book is little more than an embarassing catharsis from an author for whom no amount of privileged education succeeded in helping him to grow up. It surely reaffirms my own conviction that mental health professionals should continue in the direction of treating their work more as science and less as the virtually worthless "sympathetic listening" currently being peddaled as "social work."
Mental disease deserves an informed, medical, scientific approach, not inane pop culture "I'm getting OK- you're getting OK" babble from people who can't deal their own demons, much less help others to deal with theirs.
Mr. Barber's approach of sponging off of the troubles of others in order to feel better about his own inadequacies does little to help either side of the exchange. Don't bother reading this book unless you enjoy listening to someone feel sorry for himself. It's written by someone who been feeling sorry for himself his whole life, and he's singing the same old tune.
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A worthwhile read that leaves you still groping for answers ( reubenz3 )
Songs from the Black Chair was awesome. Admittedly, it was more about the author's own struggles than about any of the people he has helped, but that's not a criticism... it is noted simply because the title, which suggests that the book will be about his patients, is misleading.
All the same, it was a story that touched and moved me deeply. As do many primary care providers, I have cared for and treated the mentally ill almost 15 years, and what Barber writes about the need to simply LISTEN - and how the more highly-trained the professional, the less this ability - hits home very hard.
Sadly, psychiatry today is no longer about listening to people; it's about categorizing their symptoms and then trying to abolish these with medication. In fact, the content of a sick person's hallucinations, fears, and dreams is no longer important; what the patient has to say to us, to society, is left uncovered, ignored, or derided. What would Freud and Adler and Frankl say?
Buy it, read it -- be unsettled by it -- and pass it to a friend.
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 More self-indulgence from the me generation
Does anyone really need to read more fatuous cries for attention like this? The song being sung here is "Oh, please, I have troubles, pay attention to me." Then the discordant refrain kicks in: "I'm so helpless, buy my book so I can I tell you how helpless I am, and I'll tell you about all the other people who can't cope."
But it's the constant background whining of Barber's chorus that sounds the most unoriginal note, and is so embarassingly out of tune. Do we really need to feel sorry for yet another spoiled little rich kid complaining about how the everyday challenges of life were, and are, and always will be, just so, so, very difficult for sensitive little twits like him? Moreover, does anyone need to listen to immature moans posing as songs? It's likely the "American Idol" tryouts fulfill that particular need, or "empty chasm of emotional isolation," as they intone in the world of pseudo-psychological cliches.
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Too far and few between... ( kjmphd2 )
This memoir was moving, almost beyond words. I was poignantly and thankfully reconnected to the reasons I most wanted to be a therapist many years ago. Mr. Barber's efforts have produced a work of distinction for its openness, sincerity. and fearsome humanity. Kathryn J. Mas, Ph.D.
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Addiction
