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A Personal Journey Through Psychotherapy: A Case Study Revisited

Author(s) : Susan M. Fereday

Reviews and Endorsements

‘How does it feel to be the subject of a case study?

In 2002 I was the subject of a published “Kleinian” case study, and years later, after completing my studies in psychotherapy and counselling, I considered writing my own account of this highly personal experience. My story is not an in-depth analysis of my experience of individual psychotherapy, but is rather an exploration of the procession of causative factors that, for me, acted like signposts, pointing the way towards a therapeutic intervention. I have written from the perspective of an emerging self. That part of me that was left behind while I grew up, had a family of my own, sought work among people who needed care and guidance, and eventually gravitated towards a career in counselling. My true self was not revealed in convenient instalments within the therapeutic process, it was plunged dramatically into a reality that had only previously been glimpsed at from behind a veil of dusty false layers.’
— From the author’s Introduction

‘A beautifully written book, in which Susan documents how the passages of childhood, adolescence, and maturity were curtailed and disrupted after her mother became disabled with a life-threatening illness. Her role of carer shadowed her education, her failed marriage, and the birth of her children. There were bleak, chaotic, dark times when all seemed unendurable. But, in persevering with her training in professional social work, Susan turned to psychoanalytic psychotherapy for support, and could accept and understand Melanie Klein's concept that feelings of love and hate, compassion and frustration, co-exist and fluctuate throughout the life cycle. In investigating other forms of psychotherapy, Susan finds also that John Bowlby’s explanation of the attachment process encourages her to form a strong attachment to her therapist, thus enabling her to move forward from a secure base for her future development.’
— Dr Cassie Cooper, FBACP; UKCP registered psychoanalytic psychotherapist