Endorsements: The Second Edition of Psychodynamic Perspectives on Aging and Illness is a timely
and superb revision which offers health-care professionals working at the mind body interface a
paradigm shift. For far too long the wisdom of psychoanalysis as a tool to understand the
suffering inherent in aging and illness has been devalued and neglected. With this update Dr.
Greenberg incontrovertibly corrects this lapse. Her integration of current scientific research
alongside a user-friendly discussion of the theory and practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy
is an important contribution to the psychology of medicine. Several topics are elaborated the
constructs of hysteria and somatization the biology of stress the impact of attachment
history on coping with sickness as well as the experiences of trauma and grief. As with the
first edition the idea that the patient's experience of illness cannot be understood without
including the subjectivity of the practitioner who provides care is considered and done so with
more awareness of this complexity. Each chapter now contains a section on Suggested Techniques
that succinctly presents a guideline for applying the ideas set forth. Other no table aspects
of the book are its reflections on the culture of medicine and the insights about the
influences of contemporary Western life on the manifestation and adjustment to illness. This
edition is above all essential for those practitioners dedicated to providing collaborative
and interdisciplinary health-care which is both biologically and psychologically informed. As
with the First Edition it will continue to be required reading. Marilyn S. Jacobs Ph.D. ABPP
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA A wonderful well-researched and important book that
proves to be as much about humanity and resilience as it is about human psychology. Lee Daniel
Kravetz Author of Supersurvivors: The surprising Link Between Suffering & Success Tamara
McClintock Greenberg is one of the leading health psychologists of our time. In this second
edition of her classic text she corrects the much overlooked interface between the
psychodynamics of aging illness and the doctor-patient relationship offering insights that no
other practitioner or theorist has accomplished to date. Combining her training and expertise
in psychology and behavioural medicine she facilely navigates the turbid waters of how medical
illness and aging is informed by unconscious dynamics childhood familial relations
somatisation coping and recovery and the convergence of mind and body. Healthcare
practitioners of all types who work therapeutically with chronically ill and older adults will
find this to be a perspicacious and indispensible approach to clinical praxis. Jon Mills PsyD
PhD C.Psych. ABPP Professor of Psychology &Psychoanalysis Adler Graduate Professional
School Toronto In the second edition of Psychodynamic Perspectives on Aging and Illness Dr
Tamara Greenberg makes a remarkable contribution to those who treat patients with medical
illnesses as they age. Her psychodynamically informed approach to patients in later life
couldn't come at a better time as our population becomes older. Challenging the field's dogma
that older patients are too set-in-their-ways to make personality changes Dr Greenberg
demonstrates in this book how wrong that notion was. We are all a work in-progress until the
very end. This is a must-read practical book for therapists nurses families physicians
family and estate lawyers and health care navigators. Louann Brizendine M.D. Professor and
Author of The Female Brain and The Male Brain Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Professor of
Clinical Psychiatry Founder Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic UCSF Universityo
