Rating: 
Summary: Source of James Dean's brief shining hour
Review: I don't want to review this book so much as remind readers (or inform those who weren't born a month and 15 days after James Dean, as I wss), or potential readers, that a chapter with the same title was the source of the movie "Rebel Without a Cause." I read the book after seeing the movie the first time (when it came out), and remember it as enthralling.
Rating: 
Summary: The paths of psychotherapy
Review: I have been doing psychotherapy for years and always find it fascinating to see how childhood experiences lead to the development of problems. There are lots of books about the theories, but the actual cases always seem much more striking to me. This book is fun to read if you are interested in looking at these kind of connections. I wish there were more books about this, but the subject seems to be out of vogue these days although people still have as many psychogenic problems as ever. I don't particularly like the books that make case material like this too artistic and flowery; this book describes the characters to the point. The examples part of "The Road Less Traveled" was also good in the same way.
Rating:
Summary: The Fifty Minute Hour
Review: I highly recommend this book. The author tells about his most interesting patients and how he treated them. He takes you through each case as he is going through it, which I find facinating. He even acknowledges his fears and anxieties. I read this book years ago and still remember it fondly. I am anxious to read it again. I like the fact that the author writes as if he is an old friend telling you a series of mesmerizing stories. He also writes without a superiority complex, which I find refreshing.
Rating:
Summary: How I lost this book, and found it again.
Review: I lent this book to a dear girl friend, who is a doctor. After she read it, she would not return it. She said she can lend it to me, but that it has become a part of her personal professional library, and I would have to return it to her because she cannot part with it!I am glad I gave her a book that became a part of her personal professional library, but it has been missing from mine. So now I finally found it again, here, and I am going to buy it again, for my library! That is how great this book is. Five stars is not enough stars, but it is all I can give.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: I read the "The Fifty Minute Hour" in the 1960's and was particularly impressed by the chapter "The Jet Propelled Couch." In the mid 1990's I was telling my teenage daughter about the chapter and we went out and bought the book to see if dad remembered correctly. I did and she enjoyed the book as much as I did. It is a classic. I believe the scientist in "The Jet Propelled Couch" was at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The "Fifty Minute" comes from Freud. He advised therapists to reserve ten minutes to cool down after a session with a patient and to prepare for the next patient. In this post-Freudian era patients are seen back-to-back and the hour is fifty minutes to increase revenue, not to cool down. In fact the hour is now down to 40 minutes and even 30 with some doctors! Unfortunately Lindner's next book "Prescription for Rebellion" as I remember was a dud. Really disappointing let down after the FMH.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: I read the "The Fifty Minute Hour" in the 1960's and was particularly impressed by the chapter "The Jet Propelled Couch." In the mid 1990's I was telling my teenage daughter about the chapter and we went out and bought the book to see if dad remembered correctly. I did and she enjoyed the book as much as I did. It is a classic. I believe the scientist in "The Jet Propelled Couch" was at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The "Fifty Minute" comes from Freud. He advised therapists to reserve ten minutes to cool down after a session with a patient and to prepare for the next patient. In this post-Freudian era patients are seen back-to-back and the hour is fifty minutes to increase revenue, not to cool down. In fact the hour is now down to 40 minutes and even 30 with some doctors! Unfortunately Lindner's next book "Prescription for Rebellion" as I remember was a dud. Really disappointing let down after the FMH.
Rating:
Summary: Correction to Millikan "review"
Review: Sorry to disappoint potential readers, but Lindner's "The Fifty-Minute Hour" was NOT a source for the James Dean film, "Rebel Without a Cause," in any way. Robert Lindner's earlier book, titled "Rebel Without a Cause," a book-length study of a "criminal psychopath," was not a source for the film either, except that the producers paid Lindner for their use of the title. Nonetheless, "The Fifty-Minute Hour" remains one of the most fascinating collections of psychological case histories written for a general audience--especially the final case history, "The Jet-Propelled Couch," especially recommended to any science fiction fan.
Rating:
Summary: Correction to Millikan "review"
Review: Sorry to disappoint potential readers, but Lindner's "The Fifty-Minute Hour" was NOT a source for the James Dean film, "Rebel Without a Cause," in any way. Robert Lindner's earlier book, titled "Rebel Without a Cause," a book-length study of a "criminal psychopath," was not a source for the film either, except that the producers paid Lindner for their use of the title. Nonetheless, "The Fifty-Minute Hour" remains one of the most fascinating collections of psychological case histories written for a general audience--especially the final case history, "The Jet-Propelled Couch," especially recommended to any science fiction fan.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting in light of the "K-PAX" craze!
Review: This book is particularly interesting in light of Gene Brewer's novel (and now film) "K-PAX", based on "The Jet-Propelled Couch" episode in this book. In this episode, we meet the original model for prot -- not a homeless person, but a respected scientist. Conjecture has it that he may have been science fiction writer Cordwainer Smith. In any event the story is fascinating, and Lindner writes in a clear, mature and intelligent style. Well worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Classic account
Review: This book was the culmination of the phenomenon of the "writing psychotherapist," when Freudian psychoanalysis was still at the height of its popularity and psychoanalysts were regarded as intrepid explorers of inner space with prestige virtually on a par with rocket scientists and physicists. Many of the analyst-writers who were popular during this period have long since been forgotten, such as H.A. Overstreet, and his book, The Great Enterprise, but Lindner's has become an enduring classic of the field. No doubt most of that relates to his choice of fascinating cases to detail, such as one about the brilliant physicist who concocted an entire science-fictional world which he inhabited in the chapter, "The Jet-Propelled Couch," and which enthralled readers of the book. The book likely would not have nearly the same impact today, but Freud's popularity had not yet waned, and was helped out by dramatic movies with superstar casts, such as Gregory Peck's 1965 movie, Mirage, and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, in which Freudian analysts were portrayed as heroes engaged in life and death battles with the dark forces of the unconscious. Overall still a classic in the field, and Lindner's fascinating and dramatic accounts of these cases still make for interesting reading.
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