Untangling Lives

"Untangling Lives: A Psychiatrist Remembers" is a memoir that focuses on how a psychiatrist separates his own personal history and experiences from the narratives of his patients in psychotherapy, particularly focusing on issues of loss and recovery. Dr. Billig, a psychiatrist, provides autobiographical material, patient therapy descriptions (identities and circumstances disguised), and remembered excerpts from his own personal psychoanalysis to demonstrate the importance of the therapist understanding his own past as he treats patients in psychotherapy.

"Untangling Lives: A Psychiatrist Remembers" is a memoir that focuses on how a psychiatrist separates his own personal history and experiences from the narratives of his patients in psychotherapy, particularly around the issues of loss and recovery. Dr. Nathan Billig, a psychiatrist, provides autobiographical material, patient therapy descriptions (identities and circumstances disguised), and remembered excerpts from his own personal psychoanalysis to demonstrate the importance of the therapist understanding his own past as he treats patients in psychotherapy. This compelling memoir shares a set of memories, reminiscences, and descriptions of therapist and patient interactions, showing the importance of the therapeutic relationship and alliance in the treatment situation.

Dr. Nathan Billig was born and raised in New York City, where he also started his career in medicine. For over four decades, Dr. Billig practiced general psychiatry with interests in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, consultation-liaison psychiatry, and geriatric psychiatry, in addition to teaching and leading research programs as a faculty member at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He is the author of two previous books – "To Be Old and Sad: Understanding Depression in the Elderly" (Lexington Books) and "Growing Older and Wiser: Coping with Expectations, Challenges and Change in the Later Years" (Lexington Books). He is a pioneer in the aging-in-place Village Movement, as a founder and past president of Chevy Chase at Home. A proud product of New York schools, Dr. Billig attended Queens College of the City University of New York, the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, and he did his psychiatry training at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center/Albert Einstein Medical Center, and Georgetown University Hospital. His service as a physician/psychiatrist in the U.S. Air Force, at Andrews Air Force Base, brought him to Washington, DC.