The Skeleton Cupboard: The Making of a Clinical Psychologist - Tanya Byron [epub]

The Skeleton Cupboard is Professor Tanya Byron's account of her years of training as a clinical psychologist, when trainees find themselves in the toughest placements of their careers. Through the eyes of her naive and inexperienced younger self, Tanya shares remarkable stories inspired by the people she had the privilege to treat. Gripping, poignant and full of daring black humour, this book reveals the frightening and challenging induction faced by all mental health staff and highlights their incredible commitment to their patients.

Powerfully moving and beautifully written, The Skeleton Cupboard shares the tales of ordinary people with an amazing resilience to the challenges of life.

Review

“The Skeleton Cupboard is an engaging and compelling account of the training years of a clinical psychologist, Tanya Byron. In beautiful language, Byron tells the stories of several challenging patients, including a violent man, a severely anorexic girl, and a man dying of AIDS. She reveals her own concerns and struggles as she narrates others' stories, and focuses on these in her supervisory sessions with her brilliant yet difficult supervisor. She shows psychology at its best, really connecting with and helping its patients, while remaining mindful of the limitations that therapists necessarily have. In narrating these stories, Byron gives a window into the mind of her patients as well as her own mind. We come to understand, to sympathize, and to care.” ―Elyn R. Saks, Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California and author of The Center Cannot Hold

“Moving and thought-provoking” ―The Sunday Times (UK)

“Tanya Byron is a formidable writer. Her powerful stories from the front lines of clinical psychology will stay with me forever.” ―Dr Brian Goldman, Emergency Physician and author of The Secret Language of Doctors