Sleeping on the Analyst’s Couch

About the Book

After the author returns from her father’s funeral, she feels a passionate need to converse with him about their lives during her younger years. Although her father is now deceased, she imagines a dialogue with him in his psychoanalyst’s office, the space where she stayed and slept throughout the week while making arrangements for his funeral. The author takes the reader into the experience of active psychoanalysis during which analyst and patient must allow essential time, repetition, forgetfulness, recollection and patience to eventually, and at long last, gain relief, understanding, and freedom. This deeply personal retrospective about a father/daughter relationship is brutally honest, and the author is aware that to write with such honesty requires courage. The truth cannot be buried without negative consequences, whereas, as the axiom the truth will set you free will, with love and empathy, prove to be just and sure. While it is obviously cathartic for the author, this memoir may encourage readers to feel compassion for themselves and others in their own lives.

About the Author

Deirdre Doran grew up in the sun-drenched world of Los Angeles in the ‘50s and ‘60s at a time when Hollywood was bursting with romance and star power. The daughter of a playwright and a renowned Beverly Hills psychoanalyst, she learned early to pay attention to emotionally complex stories. Her fascination with human drama led her to become a writer.