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Would-Be Wife Killer: A Clinical Study of Primitive Mental Functions, Actualised Unconscious Fantasies, Satellite States, and Developmental Steps

Author(s) : Vamik D. Volkan

Reviews and Endorsements

‘This is a story about two men, Dr Volkan and his patient, Attis, who knew each other for over thirty years. As Dr Volkan tells us the story, we learn more than we could ever get from a textbook, and about almost all types of mental functioning - including child and adolescent development, what goes on in people’s thinking, and how world events can affect us all. Dr Volkan draws the reader into both an intellectual and a moving emotional understanding of psychosis. He explains what happens in the mind of the therapist trying to help a strange, unhappy, and initially dangerous person. Although a scholarly, integrative tour de force, what makes the book so important is that, like a good teacher, it “hits home”. As you are alternately shocked, confused, angered, elated, and uplifted, you will not be able to avoid learning from or loving this book. It is psychoanalytic theory at its living, breathing best, told in a way you will never forget.’
— Jerome S. Blackman, MD, DFAPA, President, American College of Psychoanalysts; Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk; author of 101 Defenses: How the Mind Shields Itself, Get the Diagnosis Right, and The Therapist’s Answer Book

‘In a field that views people struggling with psychosis primarily as receptor sites for molecules, Vamik D. Volkan teaches us about the difference a wise clinician can make by listening to a patient’s human story. Would-Be Wife Killer unfolds like a novel, and a page-turner at that, as Volkan masterfully lays out the story of a man who came close to becoming a psychotic murderer. Recounting “therapeutic stories” that underlie central unconscious fantasies, and revealing the deeply personal autobiographical basis of his countertransference experience, Volkan shows us how an empathic clinician attuned to meaning can help a person reclaim life, even in the face of psychosis. This is the I Never Promised You A Rose Garden of its time. It has much to teach us about how to engage with difficult, even frightening, patients, and about a clinician whose career has been devoted to a rigorous and coherent way of working with them. This may be Volkan’s best clinical book.’
— Eric M. Plakun, MD, Associate Medical Director, Austen Riggs Center; Leader, American Psychological Association Psychotherapy Caucus