Fifty Shrinks features intimate portraits of psychotherapists in their private offices. My book includes luminaries who advanced the boundaries of their fields such as Charles Brenner, Otto Kernberg, Martin Bergmann, Michael Eigen and Albert Ellis next to aspiring, young professionals.
What started as a creative side line project in 2001 converged into a compendium of portraits of my peers that also reflects my own interest in the empathic lens that is shared by my two passions, psychiatry and photography.
In a field bound by the pressing necessity of helping patients, psychotherapists are the ones who deflect attention and - in fact, actively avoid being the object of it. My colleagues graciously permitted me to make them the focus of this photographic survey. I photographed dozens of practitioners with a wide range of educational backgrounds and subspecialties - psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists all of them using techniques based on their particular orientation: psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, relational and many others.
After a few photographic sessions, I understood that, for a more fully realized portrait, I would also need to include the essence of the many fascinating conversations I had with my subjects. I started to conduct interviews with my peers inviting them to share details of their work. The summaries of these interviews illuminate the photographs, revealing the unique perspectives of my colleagues and a compelling array of the major themes that occupy them.
As you read through the book, you will be struck by the variety of moods, ambiences, and furnishings, mirroring the wide spectrum of therapeutic philosophies held by the practitioners who opened their private offices and their minds as well.