Beyond the Frustrated Self

'This is a fascinating book. Barbara Dowds has a fertile, creative intelligence, which makes unexpected connections between the scientific and the spiritual, culture, and therapy. Her starting point is a masterful integration of the energy systems of the body with developmental neuroscience and attachment theory. This book really is an unusual and welcome addition to the understanding of attachment and human well-being. I enjoyed it very much.'- Sue Gerhardt, author of Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain'Barbara Dowds' profound and readable meditation on therapeutic movement from anomie to a meaning-infused life is an integrative triumph, drawing on attachment theory, psychodynamics, body therapies, literature, neuroscience, and psychodrama. These pearls of theory are seamlessly threaded around her fictional heroine, Brenda (the name evokes authorial overtones), an everywoman with whose travails the reader, therapist, or client - or both - can readily identify. This breath of fresh air will raise the spirits and widen the horizons of therapists wishing to escape the longueurs of conventional psycho-scripture.' - Professor Jeremy Holmes MD, FRCPsych, University of Exeter, UK