In 1990, not­ed author and psy­chi­a­trist M. Scott Peck and attor­ney Elliot Tal­en­feld began what would become a decade long cor­re­spon­dence. The two exchanged ideas about the rela­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al impli­ca­tions of Peck’s famous dic­tum, in The Road Less Trav­eled, that ​“any tru­ly lov­ing rela­tion­ship is one of mutu­al psy­chother­a­py.” Call­ing Talenfeld’s ideas on the sub­ject ​“extreme­ly rich,” Peck encour­aged him to ​“con­tin­ue to the end with writ­ing this book.”

Tal­en­feld and his first wife, a psy­chother­a­pist, had spent three years in an inten­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that prac­ticed its own rad­i­cal form of mutu­al ther­a­py. A for­mer law pro­fes­sor and part­ner at a promi­nent law firm, he also holds a mas­ter of coun­sel­ing degree and served for six years as Can­tor of the largest Con­ser­v­a­tive syn­a­gogue in Phoenix. Draw­ing on such eclec­tic train­ing and life expe­ri­ence, his pas­sion for self-exam­i­na­tion (and fear­less self-dis­clo­sure) now yields an unex­pect­ed wealth of world­ly, psy­cho­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al insight.

Tal­en­feld writes with a lawyer’s mind, a counselor’s heart and a seeker’s pas­sion. His mem­oir is pro­found­ly Jew­ish, uni­ver­sal­ly spir­i­tu­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly astute. Those who have longed for such a syn­the­sis won’t be able to put this down.