Who is it That Can Tell Me Who I Am? : The Journal of a Psychotherapist

Jane Haynes worked as an actress at the Royal Court Theatre.

After she met R.D. Laing and read The Divided Self she gave up the theatre and became involved with Laing's work at Kinglsey Hall.

She trained as a Jungian psychoanalyst. Haynes has moved away from the position of psychoanalyst to a psychotherapist who considers that it is the combination of dialogue - within an ethical therapeutic relationship - and a trained ear that are the essential ingredients of 'The Talking Cure'.

The consulting room is a space where, to borrow from John Donne, 'souls negotiate'.

A space in which secrets can be spoken and where they feel the first shock of light and air.

The force for change that is unleashed in the consulting room is not a one-way process; the wise therapist changes too, and Jane Haynes shows how this happens.

There is nothing formulaic about the dialogue she holds with her patients, and nothing doctrinaire.