What Will You Do With My Story?

Elizabeth Meakins is a psychoanalyst practising in North London.

This book is a response to a question put to the author years ago when she was a trainee psychotherapist. Asked by a young woman who had been describing her traumatic experience of sexual abuse, her question was: 'what will you do with my story?''What Will You Do With My Story? is that unusual thing: a book that is at once useful and illuminating for both therapists and the people who seek their help. What Elizabeth Meakins reveals in her fascinating book is the variety, the subtlety, and the sheer pleasure of collaboration; and of the versions of psychoanalysis that make it possible.'- Adam Phillips, psychoanalyst and author of On Balance, Side Effects, and Going Sane'There is much to debate and also to celebrate in this honest, lively, accessible, and thought-provoking book. It offers a fresh and unexpected place for uninitiated readers to find their own way through the often bewildering noise of clashing psychoanalytic theories, even practices; indeed to find enlightenment and succour.'- Margot Waddell, psychoanalyst and consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist'I found Elizabeth Meakins' pieces in The Independent a breath of fresh psychotherapeutic air - eclectic, always interesting and perceptive.' - Michael Brearley, psychoanalyst and former president of the British Psychoanalytical Society'In this beautifully written book, Elizabeth Meakins prioritises the importance of each client finding their own authentic voice even if it forces the therapist to think outside of his or her own theoretical structures. This book will be of interest to both professionals and interested non-professionals who want to see what good therapy looks like.'- Sue Cowan-Jenssen, integrative psychotherapist and EMDR consultant

• Introduction , Doubts and certainties , Learning to be in the dark , Secrets and silences , In search of others , The angel in the house , I, me, myself, my selves , Appendix