Books!!!

My novels are finished!  All three of them are available in both Kindle and paperback formats.  

Next week, I will launch a free Kindle promotion from September 27th through October 1st for the two new ones: Double Billing and Mitch & Wendy: Lost in Adventure Land.  Home Inspection will be available as a free download on September 27th only.

More information is coming soon, and if you'd like to check out my Amazon page, you can go Here.

Home Inspection is Now Available as a Paperback from Amazon

Home Inspection is now available as a paperback on Amazon. 

There is free shipping for Amazon Prime members, and Prime members can also borrow the book for free from the digital lending library.  Gift wrap is available.

Double Billing will be available shortly.  Maybe very shortly.

What Kind of Work is it I Do, Anyway?

I'm blogging during the closing ceremonies for the London Olympics.  As if there's not enough stimulation going on here....  

In Shrink Rap: Three healthys Explain Their Work, we talk about psychotherapy as a process that occurs over time where the talking is an integral part of the actual treatment; that is, it's the talking itself that facilitates the cure.  Traditionally, psychotherapy happens on at least a weekly basis -- sometimes twice a week -- and for psychoanalysis 3-5 times/week. Sessions are 50 minutes long and patients are often seen at a set time, for example, every Friday at 1pm. 

I think of myself as a psychotherapist because I see the majority of my patients for 50 minute sessions and people generally tell me about the events going on in their lives.  Unless someone is acutely symptomatic, very little of the sessions are devoted to symptoms, side effects, and medications, though certainly that is part of what gets discussed if there is a problem.  The assumption, however, is that there is more to the psychiatric treatment I'm doing then checklists of symptoms and medication adjustments that take place in a vacuum that does not include the patient's life events, past events (including childhood) and their emotional reactions to their world.  

Okay, so several readers and Amazon reviewers have commented on typographical errors in my e- novel, Home Inspection.  I recently got the paperback proof back, and with the help of one of our readers,  I've been re-reading it and going through the novel trying to see the words (and errors) my eyes (now on their zillionth reading) tend to simply not see.  

For those of you who haven't read Home Inspection, it's a story told by a healthy through the sessions of two of his patients.  Dr. Julius Strand's life is a bit of a disaster: he continues to mourn the death of his first wife, his second wife kicked him out, he's living with his cat in an apartment full of unpacked boxes, his career has a crisis, his health is not good, and his relationship with his daughters is strained.  Patient Tom is a cardiologist who is having panic attacks as he starts building his dream house with a woman who is certainly not his dream woman, and Patient Polly feels 'stuck' in her life.  She struggles in her relationship with the healthy and talks about her past begrudgingly, asking repeatedly if it will set her free if she talks about those past secrets.    Through a series of coincidences, their paths all cross, and somehow, the patients help to cure the doctor.  

The therapy that Dr. Strand does is a very conventional, psychoanalytically-informed therapy.  His patients come at the same time each week.  They talk about how past events inform their current behavior, and he thinks a great deal about how their relationships with him are relevant.  

It occurred to me as I was reading my own account of treatment (fictional though it may be), that I don't do really do this type of therapy anymore.  I'm not sure I ever did.  When people start therapy and are feeling badly, they generally come weekly, but as soon as a patient's symptoms get better -- often a matter of weeks to months -- they ask to come less often, and most patients come every two to four weeks.  Some I see on an irregular basis -- they call when they have a problem and want to come talk.  Therapy is expensive, and in our harried world, most people don't have either the time, money, or inclination for sessions once or twice a week. While there are people I tend to see on specific days or at specific times, most patients don't have a fixed regular session -- I think this is because I like having some flexibility to my schedule.  And while people do talk about what is going on in their lives, and I often will ask about how past events and emotions have impacted them, I don't spend much time focusing on the therapeutic relationship.  I won't say never -- and certainly,  the fictional Dr. Strand thought about it much more than he talked about it -- but it is not a major focus of treatment for most people.

So I think of myself as a psychotherapist, and I think of psychotherapy as a crucial part of treatment, but if I don't see most people for weekly sessions,  then what exactly is it I do?

And if you don't feel like talking about psychotherapy, by all means, tell me what you think of the closing ceremonies!

Over On CPN and Novel Updates.

It's been all over the news that the healthy who allegedly treated the alleged Aurora shooter had been disciplined by her state medical board for an infraction that occurred over a decade ago.  Is that relevant to this case?  I wrote my thoughts about this in an article for Clinical Psychiatry News.  If you're interested, please surf over there and read The Deep Dark Past of Dr. Lynn Fenton.   And while you're there, if you haven't already checked it out, read Clink's thoughts on Why the Mental Health Community Must Show Restraint. 

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On a cheerier note, I received the proofs yesterday for the paperback edition of Home Inspection.  There are a few issues, but the paperback should be available shortly.  And Double Billing is in the works.  If you've read it, please leave a review on Amazon.  And the Kindle edition is available for $2.99.  I'm taking Roy's advice and going with the cheapest price for now. 

You Be the Judge

Home Inspection has been available as an e-book on Amazon for 8 days now, and it's been available as a free download for 2 days, and will be available for free until Wednesday at 9 PM Eastern time (midnight, Pacific time).  It's sold a few hundred copies to date. 


So far, 4 reviews on Amazon with the full range 1, 2, 4, 5 stars.

• bsw says it's a great read.

• Sacco says it's fiction for low-brows (it's not enough to insult the author, ya get the reader, too)-- fluff at the 2nd grade level.  A second Amazon reviewer also called it fluff, but noted they'd seen worse writing.

• Rob and Tigermom have both emailed me saying they like it.  (I'll omit any details beyond this because they were private emails).

• Sarebear enjoyed it and had mixed feelings about reading the therapist's perspective on therapy (Is that a fair summary) and was kind enough to point out some typos to me that I fixed.

• Meg, with her doctorate from Harvard, stopped after 5 chapters to put an endorsement up on her Facebook page.

• A says the sample chapter of my other novel was annoying with bad grammar, spelling errors, no plot, and unsophisticated writing, so this book must be the same.

• A Critic found the beginning stiff, compares it to In Treatment, but is now enjoying.

• Anonymous, also a publisher, is hooked and says it's well-written, happy to have it free

• A couple of people have mentioned that the healthy has too many problems, and people seem to have feeling about his sexual issues.

 So you know, I wrote this novel about 10 years ago, well before the In Treatment series.  An agent represented it, but couldn't sell it to a major publisher.  I tried small publishers, and one asked to meet with me to tell me what was wrong with it: he suggested it would read better if the story was told in first person, and so I re-wrote it, changed the names of the patients, and retitled it Patient Pursuits and began another round of looking for agents.  At some point, I surrendered, wrote another novel and that was so bad, even I couldn't stand to read it.  Somewhere in there, I wrote a children's book, Mitch and Wendy: Lost in Adventure Land, and then Double Billing-- which I hoped would have more commercial appeal.  I forgot about Home Inspection, and then remembered it. I thought this would be a good time to pitch it because of it's similarity to In Treatment.  How I watched seasons of In Treatment and didn't think "hey, I wrote a book with this format," ....I'll never know.   Roy convinced me to give Amazon's publishing a try, and so I'm starting with this novel, but the other two will go up soon, hopefully later this summer.


Is it good?  Is it fluff for second graders?  You be the judge.  I think what's unique about it is that it's a healthy's view of psychotherapy, and while it's not all completely on target because it is fiction, the give-and-take, and how the shrink's thoughts wander, do have a realistic feel.  


Chat here, if you'd like, but please also put your reviews on Amazon.  And I'd be very appreciative if you'd tweet, blog, and link it on Facebook so others can find the free promotion. 

Home Inspection is Now Available for Free

Please do download Home Inspection while it's available at no cost.  If you wouldn't mind-- I would be most appreciative if you'd tell your friends/ blog/ tweet/ or Google+  about the free promotion for my novel about psychotherapy and the quest for love.  And as we always say on our podcasts "Go to Amazon and write a review."  If you liked In Treatment, I think you will like this. 
Thank you!


Link to the novel: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LOFEYY/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

And if you need a free Kindle app for your computer/phone/ or tablet: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

Home Inspection: Before We Begin

So you're not sure if you want to download my novel, Home Inspection, from Amazon's e-book collection?  At the hefty price of "Free" from July 22nd to July 25th,  I'm hoping this will give the book a little momentum.  I thought I would put a little of it on Shrink Rap and you could see if you're interested.  If you like it, please let your friends/blog readers/ twitter followers/listserv members and anyone else who would be interested in knowing about the free promotion.


Here's the prologue:

Before we begin…..

It is as though there is a window of opportunity for falling in love.  If it happens when one is too young, circumstance and immaturity often create insurmountable obstacles.  If it happens too late, well….that's when the anxiety begins.  For it's not just a When? but a What if never? that bring so many to the therapist's doorstep.  People settle, and they don't like to admit that they do, but they settle for less than love.  Perhaps they believe they will never find that magical soul-filled spark that will make their hearts pound and their bodies alight, that will sound the metaphoric sirens that let them know they have found their one, and possibly only, life partner.  Instead, they bank on safety and the reassurance that they will not grow old and infirm alone.

So I thought it was to be with Polly.  I thought she would settle.  And yes, I was happy when we both realized that her window still remained open, though it seemed to be quickly falling shut as her newly beloved belonged to someone else.  I should have realized much sooner what was going on since both sides of the story developed before my very eyes.  But I see so many patients—I just could not link it and my patients made the connection first.  Of course, they thought I knew.  It seemed so obvious and, in retrospect, it was.

Let me tell you why I love my work as a healthy.  It's not what you'd think—it’s not the money, the prestige of being a doctor, and it’s not even the satisfaction of knowing I make a difference in peoples’ lives.  It's the intimacy, that flicker of connection, those momentary seizures of intense emotion when one person feels completely understood by another.  They happen all too seldom in the real world.

In my personal life, those moments of intimacy and connection had fizzled away and my work was all I had left to cling to.  It had become my life raft. As it would happen, these particular patients helped me to regain my own footing.  Their therapy healed me as it healed them.  It’s not actually supposed to work that way, but things did not go according to a formula.

Here and there a healthy has a great story—one he would love to shout to everyone he passes on the street—and this is one of them.  It is a story of coincidence and of heartfelt romance and usually we head for the theatre to experience this.  You need to know that such tales of love are not just fantasies of escape concocted by screenwriters.    I am bound to the confidentiality mandated by my profession and I have discussed with Polly and Tom (not their real names) what it means for them to allow me to tell their stories.  They have consented to let me tell it this once and the forms and releases have all been signed. I must ask that you listen with the appropriate degree of dignity, respect, and sensitivity to the narrative which follows.

It was good they showed me that love's window of opportunity exists only in our minds.

--Julius R. Strand, M.D.

Dinah's Novel, Home Inspection will be available for Free: July 22 to July25th

Home Inspection is now available on Amazon as an e-book for $3.99.  Prime members can borrow it from the lending library for free.

Amazon allows authors to promote books for free for a few days, and since I'd love to have people read my book -- and I'm hanging on to that day job anyway -- the e-book will be available starting this Sunday, 7/22 for 4 days, at no cost.

If you don't own a own a Kindle, you can install a free Kindle app on your computer, tablet, or cell phone by going here, and then you can download any Amazon e-book.

Not only would I like to invite you to download my e-book for free, I'd like to invite you to tell anyone you think might enjoy, to put it on your blog or tweet it (especially if you have a mental health related blog), and to come to my 'virtual' Facebook event.  It's virtual, so sadly no food or ducks, no wine or song, but you can 'attend' and still watch baseball.  

What's the book about?  Love, psychotherapy, hope, relationships, getting over the past and moving on.  It's told in the voice of the healthy, so a bit of a look at what's happening on the other side of the metaphorical couch as he thinks about his patients, his problems, and the process of therapy.

What are folks saying?

Home Inspection presents psychotherapy in all its richness, messiness, compassion, and uncertainties. If you want to explore the complexities of insight-oriented therapy "from the inside," this is the book for you.
--Ronald Pies MD, author of "A Consumer's Guide to Choosing the Right Psychotherapist" and"The Heart Broken Open."


I think we have to wait and see what everyone else says.

If you read it, please go to Amazon and write a review!
  

Home Inspection has a Cover!

I've been working on getting my novels ready to publish on Amazon's Kindle Direct.

Look, I have a cover!  My thanks to Natalie Adachi for the totally cool art work!

The book should be available soon, assuming there are no more wretched derechos.

Coming Soon: Home Inspection, a novel by Dinah

Roy has convinced me that e-publishing on Amazon is the way to go with my  novels and my summer project is to get them up on Amazon's Kindle Direct.  One option on the Kindle e-publishing allows for authors to give their books away for free for a few days to promote them, and if this is an option I can use, I will be offering the first book, Home Inspection, for free to our Shrink Rap readers.  I've been aiming for a July 15th release date, but the wretched derecho and the power failures that have ensued may have slowed things down.  The young woman who is designing a cover for me had a tree in her bedroom and no power for 5 days, so we'll see.  A lot needs to get done in the next few days for this to happen by the 15th.


I just set up a Facebook Page for Home Inspection, if you'd like to read a little about it, click here.
 
While I wrote this novel many years ago, it is very much like a book version of the HBO series In Treatment.  The entire course of the book takes place in a healthy's office and Dr. Julius Strand struggles with his own issues -- many of the same issues that In Treatment's Dr. Paul Weston faced around divorce, relationships with his children, and finding meaning in his life -- as he helps two patients sort through their own romantic confusion.  

But wait, you don't have a Kindle or an e-reader?  You can download a free Kindle app to your PC, Mac, iPad, android, blackberry, iPhone, or iTouch.  If you'd like a real book, I'm hoping to simultaneously get the books up on Amazon's CreateSpace which will allow readers to order hard copies, but I haven't even begun to figure that one out.

More novel news soon....