...extraordinarily poignant, engaging, colorful, sensual, evocative, and funny... an original and creative weaving of professional, personal, intergenerational, historic cultural...superb!”
- LES R. GREENE, PH. D PRESIDENT, AMERICAN GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY ASSOCIATION
4.9 star rating on Amazon.
War, poverty, famine, slavery doesn't just affect the survivors; 7 or more generations can suffer. Three generations have a voice in this book. The first is a Jew in Ukraine, witnessing the Russian Revolution. The second are his American children who unconsciously suffer from this trauma. The third are members of a therapy group who represent the millions of people whose mental health are affected by inherited trauma. A detailed group therapy meeting, reveals the path to healing.
ENDORSED BY Alexander Wolf, M.D. , the "Grandfather of American Group Psychoanalysis”
Dear Elaine,
I began reading your book and finished it - unable to stop - the following morning. I was very moved by it - by the openness with which you reveal yourself - by your involvement emotionally with group members - by the lucidity, intuition, brilliance and tenderness you displayed to members of your family and to your patients - by your profundity in interpretations.
You've written a magnificent piece of work.
Congratulations.
Publish it!
Warmly,
Al
BOOK REVIEW, Huffington Post: 5/11/2015
World renowned group therapist Elaine J. Cooper's new book,Let's All Hold Hands and Drop Dead: Three Generations One Story, is part autobiography, part biography and part guide for clinicians in the field. But it is also meaningful and useful self- help for those who are struggling to build intimate relationships…
Cooper writes convincingly about how trauma can be passed down from one generation to the next -- many times without direct recognition or awareness…
Her descriptions are so raw -- at times embarrassingly so -- that readers may cringe at the depth of the author's honesty and abandon. She alternates between her father's childhood story, her own, and the parallel experience of a composite psychotherapy group ...
Having had the captivating experience of reading her psychologically sophisticated and memorable book, I urge those who want to work on the way they relate with others, on an intimate level, to read this book…
Elisabeth Joy LaMotte, LICSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Washington D.C.
BOOK REVIEWS
"Elaine Jean Cooper, an internationally renowned group psychotherapist and teacher, writing from both personal memories and diaries of her family members, has produced an intensely intimate and often heartbreaking account of how the ravages of war and poverty resonate unconsciously through subsequent generations, and deeply affect the capacity for happiness and intimacy. And through the lens of her therapy group, we experience the universality of the struggle to transcend trauma and find loving connection. This is a courageous and important work—deeply affecting and packed with wisdom about human nature."
Dennis J. Zeitlin, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California , San Francisco
"...a treasure trove of personal and professional insights, roiling emotions from both... a veritable human drama played out on two continents and within the confines of a tightly knit therapy group."
George Lee Butler
General, U.S. Air Force (retired)
"...extraordinarily poignant, engaging, colorful, sensual, evocative, and funny...an original and creative weaving of professional, personal, intergenerational, historic cultural...superb!"
Les R. Greene, Ph. D
President, American Group Psychotherapy Association
"A spellbinding literary work that memorializes the dynamics of group interaction as it is played out in both the intimate relationships of a family and in group psychotherapy...a passionate and complex story that documentsthe parallel struggles of intergenerational strife in both personal and professional life."
Bette Korman
Founder and Director Emirates of the Children's Museum of Manhattan
"An absolutely gorgeous, magnificently written, insightful, vulnerable, informing, personal and universal, at times funny, at times excruciating revelation!"
Patricia Stamm, M.D.
Psychiatrist, San Francisco, California, Songwriter, Artist
"A family's journey from holocaust to redemption; a therapy group's journey from despair to wholeness...the work of the courageous group members offers hope for humanity."
Lurline Aslanian, Ph.D., M.S.W.
Psychoanalyst, Sarasota, Florida
"I liked the image of circles within circles, sort of ripples of attachments, but also circles that sometimes don't intersect at all (no attachment) or only a little (weak attachments). What a lovely image for families and generations and for therapy."
Robert Tyminski, DMH
Jungian analyst and President, CG Jung Institute of San Francisco
"I think the book is fabulous. The way the strands are woven together is compelling. The comments about group, the members of the group, therapist interventions, and your belief its efficacy comes through loud and clear and rings true."
Jerome S. Gans, MD
Associate Clinical Professor, Harvard Medical School