Description

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On the court and on the field they are the world’s winners, exhibiting a natural grace and prowess their adoring fans can only dream about. Yet so often, off the field our sports heroes lose their perspective, their balance, and ultimately their place. In a work as timely as the latest fracas on the basketball court or the most recent drug-induced scandal in the dugout, Stanley H. Teitelbaum looks into the circumstances behind many star athletes’ precipitous fall from grace.  In his psychotherapy practice, Teitelbaum has worked extensively with professional athletes and sports agents—work he draws on here for insight into the psyche of sports figures and the off-the-field challenges they face. Considering both historical and current cases, he shows how, in many instances, the very factors that elevate athletes to superstardom contribute to their downfall. An evenhanded and honest look at athletes who have faltered, Teitelbaum’s work helps us see past our sports stars’ exalted images into what those images—and their frailty—say about our society and ourselves.

About the Author

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Stanley H. Teitelbaum is a practicing psychotherapist. He is faculty and senior supervisor at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health and the Training Institute for Mental Health, both in New York, and the Contemporary Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies in New Jersey.

Praise For…

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“Teitelbaum writes persuasively that sports stars have much to answer for. . . . An even-handed, practical argument that athletes must be guided by decency and held accountable for their actions—and that fans need to get a life, or at least a dose of reality.”—Kirkus

“[Teitelbaum] is not a moralist, but objective and unsympathetic in his detailed examination of the foibles, compulsions and pathologies of the men and women many fans still idolize.”—Publishers Weekly

“Stanley Teitelbaum's volume, Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols is a thoroughly researched book full of entertaining stories about the underbelly of sports.”—Max Kellerman, TV & radio personality

“A well-documented book. . . . With clarity and purpose, Dr. Teitelbaum weaves together nearly a century of historical sports facts illustrating how narcissistic pathology has damaged or destroyed many professional careers.”—Psychologist-Psychoanalyst

“This is a most provocative first step in the moral and ethical questions that 21st century sports must now confront.”—Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature

“A fascinating book.”—Nancy Grace, Court TV