NONFICTION - Oct. 6, 1996

DEAD RECKONING: A Therapist Confronts His Own Grief by David C. Treadway (Basic: $24, 260 pp.). David Treadway had a successful career as a therapist, a good marriage and two wonderful sons, yet he was plagued by a feeling of emotional emptiness. Finally, he entered therapy himself and, in doing so, began a painful examination of his childhood that ultimately allowed him to become the true inhabitant of his own heart.

Treadway’s mother was a depressed alcoholic who committed suicide when he was 20. Although she appeared to have genuinely loved her children, she was often difficult and neglectful. Treadway dealt with her death by becoming the family caretaker, an act that appeared to stem from strength but really was just a brilliant avoidance mechanism. There is no doubt that Treadway’s therapeutic journey required enormous courage; he is to be commended.

Yet that is a separate issue from the effectiveness of the book itself. Most of us have experienced trauma in our childhoods, some worse than Treadway’s, some mild by comparison, but he never quite makes the leap from his pain to ours. This book is specific only to Treadway and his family. Well-written? Yes. Indulgent? Slightly.