Book Review: Apollo versus the Echomaker - Psychotherapy, Dreams and Shamanism: A Laingian Approach

Anthony Lunt, a practising psychotherapist and the author of this polemical, problematic, and highly readable text, was a student of R.D. Laing from 1982 until Laing's death. Indeed the book contains an extract from an intriguing interview with Laing – the last he was to give, taking place just a short while before his sudden and unexpected death.

Lunt is certainly blunt and opinionated. He has much to say that is critical of the practice of psychotherapy as understood by psychoanalysts. He is also a firm proponent of Jungian ideas and judges Jung, along with Laing, to be the most significant psychotherapists of our time. One of the most intriguing and significant aspects of the book lies in the detailing of the similarities between these two visionary thinkers, particularly with regard to their stance on the focus of treatment and on their shared emphasis on 'being' with or attending to the client rather than on the more common practice of 'doing things to (or for) the client.

The book is also packed with illuminating quotes from Laing and Jung, among others, and with case study vignettes from Lunt's own practice. The text is clear, compulsively readable, and has much to recommend it at the same time, however, it veers from topic to topic in scattershot fashion, contains numerous grammatical errors, and begs for a stronger editorial assistance and direction. Lunt also tends to contradict himself. For instance, Lunt lambastes Freud for imposing interpretations upon his patients' dreams and then proceeds to do the same (though, to be fair, far less dictatorially) in later discussions.

Even so, if the ride that Lunt propels the reader along is disconcertingly bumpy at times, the vistas it points out are well worth the trip. In this, Lunt is uncannily reminiscent of his mentor; the spirit of R.D. Laing permeates the text's pages. Had he lived to read it, I feel certain that Laing would wholeheartedly have approved of this book – much to the pleasure and dismay of both his adherents and detractors. In its unique way, this text seems to me to be as much a biography of Laing as any 'proper' text on his life and work. For those willing to be provoked, it is essential reading.

Ernesto Spinelli