As a needy, attention-starved teenager, Gordon clumsily, and unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide. She landed at the Austin Riggs sanitarium, where she spent one year as an in-patient, and two years as an out-patient, bouncing from one therapist to the next. Gordon, it seems, dealt with singularly incompetent shrinks; those who weren't incompetent were inappropriate, showering Gordon with affectionate hugs and smiles that should be reserved for lovers, not patients.
She was saved by the arrival of a new therapist, Leslie Farber, who didn't press Gordon to spill her guts about her childhood or relive early traumas. Instead, Farber and Gordon met regularly to hang out, read, chat. And Gordon got well.
There was, of course, an attendant danger to this anti-therapy therapy. Gordon got a little too attached to Farber, following him to New York, hanging out with his family.
Gordon's stunning memoir will give you pause about traditional therapy--and a-traditional therapy, too.
