Nobody's Victim: Freedom from Therapy and Recovery

A clinical psychologist claims his professional role is not so much therapist as ``reminder.'' In his refreshing and insightful analysis of the proliferation of 12-step and other kinds of recovery programs, McCullough (Managing Your Anxiety) decries the notions of victimhood and codependency that characterize many such therapies. Instead, he focuses on a client's ``awareness and manifestation of free choice.'' Demonstrating how he reminds patients of their freedom, he rejects the concepts of powerlessness and narcissism that many recovery programs and therapists emphasize. While his eclectic approach, with its emphasis on emotional pain as a natural and necessary step to growth, is likely to be opposed by some of his colleagues, McCullough, writing with freelancer Anundsen, offers self-help with a difference, which many may find liberating and self-affirming. Author tour. (June)