Seduction, Surrender, and Transformation: A Book Review

Seduction, Surrender, and Transformation  by Karen Maroda

For any budding therapist or grad student– Maroda’s Seduction, Surrender, and Transformation is a must-read.  Here, Maroda illustrates the therapeutic process from a Relational psychodynamic perspective.  She charts the course of therapy through the seduction and surrender phases of treatment, and the transformation the patient and therapist can both receive in a healthy therapeutic surrender.  Her work is based on relational and interpersonal psychoanalysis, and two-person psychologies as opposed to the traditional one-person models of the past.  This book, as well as her others, showcases the intricate and delicate dance of therapy between two individuals attending to the patient’s suffering.  The transformation that can emerge from surrendering to the process, can change behaviors, ways of Being, and old habits and patterns that are no longer serving us.  So much more can be said about this book.  But if you wish to learn more about Relational psychodynamic therapy, or about the therapeutic process– I strongly recommend this book.