A Shining Affliction

"Soars into sublime meditation...what makes this book so extraordinary is her willingness to reveal exactly what goes on in the sometimes mysterious encounter between therapist and patient."—The Los Angeles Times.

A moving account of a true-life double healing through psychotherapy.

In this brave, iconoclastic, and utterly unique book, psychotherapist Annie Rogers chronicles her remarkable bond with Ben, a severely disturbed five-year-old. Orphaned, fostered, neglected, and forgotten in a household fire, Ben finally begins to respond to Annie in their intricate and revealing play therapy. But as Ben begins to explore the trauma of his past, Annie finds herself being drawn downward into her own mental anguish. Catastrophically failed by her own therapist, she is hospitalized with a breakdown that renders her unable to speak. Then she and her gifted new analyst must uncover where her story of childhood terror overlaps with Ben's, and learn how she can complete her work with the child by creating a new story from the old—one that ultimately heals them both.