ABSTRACT
Director points out that language has been somewhat sidelined by the modern emphasis on the importance of procedural non-verbal encounters. She recounts some clearly life-saving words she uttered to a very despairing patient. The review cites several literary critics commenting on the arousing, even exciting, effect of the inner rhythms contained in great poetry: the reviewer suggests that a related effect on the therapist’s voice may have added power and much-needed strength to the words themselves in this clinical situation.
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Anne Alvarez
Anne Alvarez, Ph.D., M.A.C.P., is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist (and retired Co-Convener of the Autism Service, Child and Family Dept. Tavistock Clinic, London, where she still teaches). She is author of Live Company: Psychotherapy with Autistic, Borderline, Deprived and Abused Children, of The Thinking Heart: Three Levels of Psychoanalytic Therapy with Disturbed Children and editor with Susan Reid of Autism and Personality: Findings from the Tavistock Autism Workshop. A book in her honor was edited by Judith Edwards, entitled Being Alive: Building on the Work of Anne Alvarez.