Special to the Town Crier
psychotherapy book, 'Healing the Blues'
This fall, Foothill College will have an exciting can-do teacher lecturing to the creative writing classes. Dorothea Nudelman will teach an "Introduction to Writing an Autobiography" and use her autobiography as a guide in the workshops to writing autobiographies.
In the summer of 1949, Nudelman's parents rented a cottage on the New Jersey beach. The ocean was a magical treat for a 9 year old, but within three months her childhood came to an end in a moment when she contracted paralytic polio.
Nudelman became a polio survivor as she conquered the disease and went on with her life. Years of intense work in therapy and education resulted in a successful career in teaching, marriage and motherhood.
Then forty years later, a marked change overcame Nudelman with fatigue, chronic pain and loss of strength. Post-polio syndrome started to shake the foundations of her hard-won health and mentally.
She sought therapy from a friend, David Willingham, a clinical worker from Palo Alto. Between them they wrote "Healing the Blues: A Drug-Free Psychotherapy for Depression," by Dorothea Nudelman, the patient, and David Willimgham, the therapist.
The book is written in two personal voices, and it's the gripping story about the depression of a brave woman who faced her own despair and transformed it into a creative renewal of her life.
Nudelman's approach is primarily autobiographical. Willingham's angle comes from behind the scenes where he shares his personal experience through drug-free treatment.
Although the book could be a psychology text from a personal voice, it will be used as collateral reading in Nudelman's autobiographical workshops.
The book is available from The Boxwood Press. For more information on the class call, 851-2857. For the book, call (408) 375-9110.