What's New

World Audience Publishers in New York are now running a poetry contest. To enter, you may submit up to 3 poems by August 15, 2007. The entry fee is $5 per contestant. The Winning poem will be published in the fall issue of Audience, September 30th, 2007, and will appear on the front cover. To see the complete guidelines and enter the contest follow click on the link http://www.worldaudience.org/competitions.html.  

Ernest: How long did it take you to write Hidden Grace?

 

Dr. Roper: I had the idea for the book more than 15 years ago and made two attempts to write the story that didn’t seem to work.  About 3 years ago I started again and found the voices for Dr. Wilder and Grace that seemed to work.  After that it took about two years to write.  Because of my regular job, I could only write evenings.

 

Ernest: What inspired you to the idea of writing a fiction book about psychotherapy?

 

Dr. Roper: I had been a psychotherapist for 20 years and felt that the process was not well understood by many people. I was impressed with the courage of some of my patients and I was struck by how little we know about how people manage psychological issues.  It felt like a mystery story, and I wanted to write about it.

 

Ernest: What fraction of the novel is based on real life events?

 

Dr. Roper: Much of the inspiration for the core story for Hidden Grace is based in actual patient experience.  Grace is the composite of several patients.  Dr. Wilder is more fictional than autobiographical.

 

Ernest: Given the dire realities it unveils about foster-home life, Hidden Grace is an alarming book. Have you got any response, positive or negative, from foster families or related social groups in connection with your novel?

 

Dr. Roper: The response from the professional community of mental health workers has been very positive and supportive of the messages in Hidden Grace.  The abuse Grace suffered happened many years ago, and the foster care system in America is now much improved.  Still, most professionals recognize the grave danger that may threaten children in foster placement, even today, and all feel that we must be on guard against such abuse.

 

Ernest: It is particularly interesting to see that Grace is asked to write about her traumas and show it to her therapist. How important part writing is of your therapies as a psychotherapist?

 

Dr. Roper: I used writing from time to time, but I was very impressed by the journaling technique practiced by other psychotherapists, and also in a couple of cases where I employed the technique.  From a literary point of view, the journal writing was important to represent the two sides of Grace; her limited outer expression and her far richer inner expression.

 

Ernest: One question constantly possesses the careful reader: who needed the therapy badly, Grace or Dr. Wilder?

 

Dr. Roper: This is a good question.  Clearly the therapy in the book is a healing process for both therapist and patient.  I believe that this aspect of being a therapist, in part a matter of transference and counter transference, is an aspect of the profession that has been little discussed.

 

Ernest: How significant was it for Grace’s therapy that her therapist be a man? Could a woman do it well enough?

 

Dr. Roper: In classical psychoanalytic therapies the gender of the therapist is not supposed to be important.  I believe, however, that the implication in this story of Grace’s treatment, that the fact that Dr. Wilder was a man was an important part of her regaining trust.  She needed to see a man who was not sexually exploitive.  It would appear, as the book implies, that Grace had some even deeper issues about women and her own identity as a woman, and for this, a woman as therapist might be most suitable.

 

Ernest: What do you need more in psychotherapy as a therapist, empathy or intelligence?

 

Dr. Roper: I think that both are essential, and one does not stand above the other.

 

Ernest: Do you think that Hidden Grace has a broader appeal to female readership? 

 

Dr. Roper: Naturally women will relater to Grace on a very deep level, but from reader comments so far, men also are touch by Grace’s story, and they also recognize the kinds of male issues that Dr. Wilder faces.  One reader commented further than neither Grace nor Dr. Wilder are female/male stereotypes and therefore both men and women can see themselves in Grace and in Dr. Wilder.

 

Ernest: Writing an emotionally charged work as Hidden Grace, how do you compare this experience against other professional writings?

 

Dr. Roper: Writing this book was a remarkable and inspiring experience for me.  The characters took over, and like real people, they upset me, inspired me, challenged me and taught me.  Such is the power of fiction.

 

Ernest: Have you any plans for another book in the near future?

 

Dr. Roper: Yes.  I am currently working on a mystery novel, in which an apparent suicide is in fact an attempted murder.  The twist?  The victim emerges from a coma with no memory of the events.  In psychotherapy she attempts to regain her memories, while the police detective tries to solve the crime with clues, but without the confidential information the therapist comes to know.  Readers follow the unraveling of the crime through two perspectives - police work and psychotherapy.  The truth, when revealed, is shocking.  

 

Ernest: Thank you Dr. Roper for your precious time!