Team of One

Synopsis

Everyone is talking about their mental health and vast amounts of money are being spent on therapy - but not everyone finds it helpful and now someone has died...

Psychologist Frances Fisher, has been working in public mental health services for decades. Unlike the majority of her colleagues, she is deeply sceptical about psychological therapies.Yet the service where she works is keen to push more and more people through treatment programmes to meet the ever growing demand, and the most fashionable therapy of the moment is Zen Psyonics.As the story unfolds,the problems with Zen Psyonics (and most therapies) begin to become apparent. Does it actually work? Might it be dangerous? Can we really change our essential natures? Who benefits most, the patients or the therapists? And what do human beings really need in order to survive the harms and cruelties that the world inflicts upon them?

Author

• Penny Priest: Penny Priest is a mum, retired consultant clinical psychologist, singer, songwriter, Ironman, writer, and one of five members of the Midlands Psychology Group (midpsy.uk). This is her first novel.

Reviews

Novels get to the parts that psychology textbooks cannot reach and there is no technical fix to human misery. Priest makes both points very well.
- David Pilgrim, Professor of Clinical Psychology

Team of One gives readers a chance to feel the pretensions, arrogance, and hypocrisy of the professional culture of psychologists by experiencing it in the pages of a novel rather than having a rude awakening to such bulls**t when emotionally vulnerable and seeking help.
- Bruce E. Levine, author of A Profession Without Reason

Interest-fuelled ambition meets social solidarity and resistance. This gripping story, written in an engaging and readable style, successfully portrays the neoliberal workplace as it is lived, rather than merely as theorised - Highly recommended!
- John Cromby, Professor of Psychology