You Are What You Remember
A Pathbreaking Guide to Understanding and Interpreting Your Childhood Memories
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
Tell me what you remember and I'll tell tell you who you are.” With this challenge, psychologist/psychotherapist Patrick Estrade introduces his groundbreaking method to analyze and interpret childhood memories. Such memories are widely recognized as keys that unlock our internal world, direct our actions, and determine the choices we make. But unlike dreams, memories are often neglected because we have no clearly established system for interpreting them. You Are What You Remember delineates Estrade's techniques for bringing our memories to consciousness and understanding how they inform our existence-all to the end of developing a fuller, more satisfying life and relationships.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his first title available in English, French author and veteran psychotherapist Estrade approaches memories in a way he considers unique, except for "certain aspects" of Alfred Adler's 1928 book The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology. Estrade begins by asking readers to jot down three childhood memories, a task he regularly assigns patients on their first visit; from there, he treats memories similarly to Freud's treatment of dreams. The bulk of the book is a collection of anecdotes that illustrate Estrade's method of parsing "latent" from "manifest" content in patient's memories, helping them to reinterpret their memories and gain new insight into their lives: as with dreams, "what may be insignificant for the conscious may have great significance for the unconscious." He make several interesting contentions, among them that memories need not be true to be psychologically important; what matters is "the feeling" that a memory creates, for example when a child feels guilty over events outside of his or her control. Estrade discourages lay readers from attempting self-analysis, so this title should appeal primarily to mental health practitioners, though it could make an effective reference for therapy-goers.
