The Empty Couch

In this article, Joan Acocella reviews several books on modern psychiatry: Of Two Minds by T.M. Luhrmann, Prozac Backlash: Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Other Antidepressants with Safe, Effective Alternatives by Joseph Glenmullen and Mockingbird Years: A Life In and Out of Therapy by Emily Fox Gordon. Overall, Acocella concludes that the matters that people discuss in psychotherapy – whether they are really answerable for their lives, whether they should place their own welfare over another’s – are the things that people in the Bible were trying to decide.