FICTIONAL CLINICAL NARRATIVES
IN RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS

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In a collection of twenty-two short stories beginning at a moment of trauma in adolescence, Christina Moutsou illustrates both contemporary clinical issues as well as the relational and intersubjective nature of the therapy relationship. 

What distinguishes this collection of fictional narratives is the focus on an internal point of view, where the reader is invited to experience first-hand the vicissitudes of the psychoanalytic dialogue and the enduring marks that trauma and loss leave on each member of the therapeutic dyad. The focus here is how narratives are constructed and deconstructed through the intersubjective dance between the therapist and the patient. Both are transformed through the process. The fictional nature of the stories also allows for the exploration of sensitive issues that are difficult or awkward to explore adequately using direct case studies from real-life examples.

This fascinating and unusual work provides an innovative method of exploring everyday clinical dilemmas, using an accessible, easy to follow narrative path. It is written from a broadly relational perspective but will appeal to all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as to the wider public.

The stories are told with dramatic tension and verve, making for an enjoyable and thought-provoking experience..

Kari Carstairs – Sitegeist  

Moutsou’s stories skilfully infuse the complexities of ordinary life with sensitivity and fearlessness. Her writing succeeds in breaking the spell of how this work can be written about.

Lakis Georgiou, The Psychotherapist Magazine

In this book, Christina Moutsou has engineered a meeting between professional experience and personal imagination. Has she succeeded in creating a new compound form, in this marrying of fact and fiction? Not entirely. These stories remain stories, but they brim with human insight and their introductions offer psychotherapeutic insight too. They show us individuals searching for meaning and for understanding inside and outside of the consulting room. They are illustrations of clinical issues, which, because of the internal point of view, take us right inside the individual’s thoughts and feelings, whether therapist or patient, rather than simply being third person descriptions. The book is therefore an intriguing mixture, in which she has shared with us in her inimitably poetic and creative way an exploration of the therapeutic journey.

Jane Wynn Owen, Regent’s Journal for Psychological Therapies  


Christina Moutsou has written an extremely beautiful collection of tender and poignant stories – often quite chilling, and always quite moving – which reveal not only the challenges of human development but, also, the opportunity to explore those challenges within the confidential context of the psychoanalytical consulting room. A work of great creativity and enlightenment, composed in a compelling literary style, I recommend these unique stories most warmly.

– Professor Brett Kahr, Senior Fellow, Tavistock Relationships, Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, London, and Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health, Centre for Child Mental Health, London  


This is a wonderful read not only for counsellors, therapists and psychoanalysts but also for anyone curious about the nature of human relationship. I commend it highly.

– Martin Schmidt, MBPsS, Jungian Training Analyst, Honorary Secretary and Regional Organiser for Central Europe of The International Association of Analytical Psychology  

Dr. Moutsou’s work is humanising, normalising, and compassionate. A must-read for clinicians and non-clinicians alike, ultimately proclaiming that at the very core, we’re all human, because we’re all wounded somehow.

– Aaron Balick, PhD, psychotherapist, supervisor and author of The Little Book of Calm: Tame your anxieties, face your fears, and live free


These are thoughtful, intelligent stories based mainly on exchanges in a therapeutic relationship. Christina writes eloquently and insightfully and I was gripped throughout.

– Maggie Hamand, author of The Resurrection of the Body and Creative Writing For Dummies


These are thoughtful, intelligent stories based mainly on exchanges in a therapeutic relationship. Christina writes eloquently and insightfully and I was gripped throughout.

– Maggie Hamand, author of The Resurrection of the Body and Creative Writing For Dummies

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