In the Land of the Blind

When a psychiatrist training to become a psychoanalyst seeks to find ways to connect with his patients, he endures threats, abrupt drop-outs, and a loving patient's efforts to engage him in a romance. Dr. Steve Torman leaves staid, conservative Cincinnati for the off-the-beaten-path town of Bisbee, Arizona, a real place largely forgotten by the rest of the world and populated by aging hippies, sun-fried misfits, and a challenging caseload of patients. Over the course of this novel, Dr. Torman struggles to maintain his failing marriage and to connect more meaningfully with his patients. The reader follows his path from treating patients on his couch to treating a very different caseload in a community mental health clinic. Readers of Irvin Yalom's fiction will find similarities with this work, though "In the Land of the Blind" has a more contemporary setting. The author draws on his career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to convey an insider's view of a world most people only know as patients or from secondhand sources. While psychoanalysis may be taking its last breath, people still need to talk and to feel understood, whether on the couch or in a 20 minute "med check" appointment in a clinic setting. The value of talk therapy benefits not just the patient but also the therapist, as Dr. Torman discovers. This book will take you into a world that you'll find absorbing and thought-provoking, whether you or someone you know has been in some form of psychological treatment. And this novel involves more than a look inside the consulting room; the reader witnesses Dr. Torman's growth as a person seeking engagement not only with patients but also with those in his private life. Boundaries between psychiatrists and their patients invariably become stretched. The reader witnesses how Dr. Torman attempts to navigate this tricky area, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. No easy answers are offered, no simple resolutions emerge. A board certified psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Robert Schulman M.D. practiced in Cincinnati for 39 years. In this debut novel, his varied professional experiences, his lifelong love of literature, and his humorous outlook on life inform a tale that takes the reader into a world often shrouded in mystery and skepticism.