Abrahams, Joseph, M.D.

Circles of Change: Volume 1: An Adventure in Therapeutic Community at Atascadero State Hospital Abrahams, Joseph, M.D. Annotated edition

Circles of Change represents the culmination of Dr. Abrahams' seven decade career as a psychoanalyst. In this two volume book he comes full circle from his roots as one of the creative leaders of America institutional psychiatry starting at Fort Knox Military Prison and St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D. C. to return from a long sojourn in private practice in Southern California to Atascadero State Hospital from 1990 through 1996, which is the subject of this study.

During his unique and varied career, Dr. Abrahams' studied with, was in analysis and interacted with luminaries of American psychoanalysis such as Frieda Fromm Reichmann, Harry Stack Sullivan, James Rosen, Edith Weigert and Karl Menninger. He truly deserves a place, as this book demonstrates, as one of their peers. He has made singular contributions to psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly with respect to the treatment of those patients who have been considered least accessible to traditional psychoanalytic therapy. Long before the
seminal works of Kernberg and Kohut, which are referenced in the annotated bibliography, he developed successful models and techniques for treating patients with narcissistic and psychopathic personalities as
well as psychosis and mood disorders.