"Why, in over thirty years of private practice, after listening to hundreds and hundreds of patients' dreams, had I not once encountered the presence of God, the joyful fantasy of an afterlife, the radiant appearance of an angel? Why in the outpouring and welter of wishes, secrets and hopes to which a therapist regularly attends, was heaven never mentioned?"
-from the Preface
"Gerald Alper dares to enter the difficult area of spiritual, religious, non-material existence. Afterlife, death and dying, relationship with God and other similar topics are presented carefully and scientifically. The book is a pleasure to read. As a former Jesuit priest (ordained in 1960), with a Magna Cum Laude and a Masters of Theology, I struggled with this issue for many years before assuming full responsibility for my beliefs. With that background I found the book refreshing, courageous, instructive and compassionate. I recommend it highly to anyone wishing to add the perspective of humanism to their religious upbringing."
-Daniel L. Araoz, Ed. D., former professor, Long Island University
"ALPER never writes dull books. He has one of the most creative analytic minds of his generation."
-Dr. Jerome David Levin, author of The Clinton Syndrome
This is a book about what people in their heart of hearts, when no one is looking, believe or don't believe before organized religion, political correctness, and group pressure gathers them up in its collective grasp. It is a psychodynamic axiom that death does not exist in the unconscious. If that is true, then neither does the afterlife. Neither do angels, the pearly gates or heaven. There is, however, in addition to hope and belief, a very profound desire to be paid attention to, to be cared for, to be reassured.
GERALD ALPER is an internationally recognized psychotherapist, fellow of the American Institute for Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis, and author of twenty books. These include, besides his celebrated Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patient, The Paranoia of Everyday Life and The Dark Side of the Analytic Moon.
