Nina Coltart, «How To Survive As A Psychotherapist»

The book is about psychotherapy and the professional life of a psychotherapist. Begins with the concept of vocation, then follows through the psychotherapy training programme, and the setting up of a private practice. Several aspects of the life are then studied in detail, such as consultations and coping with suicidal patients. It also looks at the personal issues involved in being a psychotherapist, such as personal outlook on life.

This book of essays, a few based on lectures to psychotherapy organisations but many newly-written pieces, both light-hearted and serious in its approach, has been collected as a guidebook to the profession. Nina Coltart is a well-known and distinguished Independent psychoanalyst, who was for ten years the Director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis, and a past Vice-President of the British Psycho-Analytical Society. The author herself questions the choice of ‘survival’ as an apt metaphor for the practice of psychotherapy, suggestive as it is of teeth-gritting endurance of major catastrophe. Her transformation of the term from its usual meaning into one that describes positive enjoyment and creativity is a bit laboured, but Nina Coltart's own personality comes through as someone who, much more than simply enduring, has flourished and enjoyed her work and her life. With liveliness, humour and good sense, she has produced a fluent, candid trip through the career of a psychotherapist.