Book excerpt: Intimacy and Alienation puts forward the author's unique paradigm for psychotherapy and counselling based on the assumption that each patient has suffered a disruption of the 'self', and that the goal of the therapist is to identify and work with that disruption. Using many clinical illustrations, and drawing on self psychology, attachment therapy and theories of trauma, Russell Meares looks at the nature of self and how it develops, before going on to explore the form and feeling of experience when self is disrupted in a traumatic way, and focusing on ways towards the restoration of the self. Written in an accessible style from the author's singular perspective, Intimacy and Alienation will appeal to professionals in the fields of psychotherapy, counselling, social work and psychiatry, as well as to students and the lay reader.