What goes through a psychiatrist's mind as she sits with her patients and listens to them talk? How does she figure out how to help, and how does she deal with hearing about the pain of others all day every day?

In this book, you have a "fly-on-the-wall" chance to learn the answers to these questions, as psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Mary Davis, MD, takes you through a week in her professional life. You hear about her reflections on her patients, about how she uses her training and professional experience to decide how to help them, and about how the work changes her. You learn what goes into the practice of psychotherapy and psychiatry from the viewpoint of a practitioner with decades of experience in the field.