Genevieve begins the book wanting to impress the organization she works for, and by the end, she’s thrown protocol out the window. What did you think of her journey? Do you think there was another way of achieving her end goal?
Genevieve blows right through ethical practice standards for therapists multiple times. For example, holding a therapy group in her living space is questionable. On page 182 she attempts to make Freya experience guilt, going so far as saying that Callum might die if Freya does not engage in rescue behavior- and how would that make her feel if he died? “I think it would take the last tiny piece of your heart that’s still intact and destroy it.” Callum was presenting with serious drug problems. It is not Freya’s job or responsibility to rescue him. I was not impressed with her journey. Since the end goal involves the ridiculous afterlife the autor created, I have no comments about if there was another way to achieve her end goal.
I agree with Renee’s comments here. Almost all of Genevieve’s actions were against the grain and accomplished rubbing me the wrong way. The storyline needed a kick but the afterlife idea came across uninspired in concept.
Since this was a unique theraphy experiment , I was okay with Genevieve Dempsey throwing everything out the window. Her unique manner helped to “resuscitate her clients”! The book was part fantasy and to my knowledge there are no clients or therapist like the characters in this book. Under “normal” Theraphy sessions she would be a rule breaker but in this book…you couldn’t have achieved this story if Genevieve followed the rules.
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I thought Genevieve was not the best at her job, to be honest. She wad not really impartial and she was visiting the participants and giving advice… idk, I just feel like she was not the greatest therapist. I do think her heart was in the right place and that what she wanted to accomplish for people who were stuck, was very admirable!
Given the unique situation which had not been done before, I don’t think it would have been possible to achieve what she did if she had followed the “established protocol.” She was breaking new ground and was deeply involved with the clients. Without her unconventional interventions her experiment would have failed.
Well said Jean! I totally agree with you!
I felt that at the beginning of the story it was necessary for readers and characters alike to see Genevieve as authoritarian and qualified for her job so that everyone could trust her and the way that she handled the given situations as they developed. However, eventually Genevieve’s own feelings for her clients ended up humanizing her and leading her to circumvent the established protocol, making her one of “the group”.
Given Genevieve’s desire to impress her organization, I was a bit skeptical about her motives for the first trial. It initially seemed like she valued her professional stature more than the feelings of her clients/patients, especially with opening sentence on the first page about taking a gamble in life. It wasn’t just her life (career) that she gambled with and it seemed odd that she never checked in with her supervisor, especially near the end when it was time to “travel.” Though her heart was in the right place, she let that take precedence over her professional ethics.
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