Not the type of book I normally review for Mummy Tombs, The Mummy at the Dining Room Table is flat-out irresistible. Only a small part of one chapter is related to mummies (more on that in a moment), but the rest of the book is so unusual and so worthy of attention that I am including it here.

The authors are two well-known therapists who have written a great deal on the subject of mental health over the years. In this book, each writes a personal chapter on his own "most difficult" or "most unusual" cases. The authors then go on to interview 30 other therapists and report their unusual cases as well.

The title of the book comes from Carlson's chapter, in which he reports three rather unusual patients. The most unusual case of the three, of course, involves a woman named Trina who is having marital problems. Carlson listens to her various problems and successfully treats her and her husband. At one point, Trina realizes that, in order to improve her marital relationship, she needs to make contact with her somewhat dysfunctional family. In attempting repeatedly to reach a shy aunt, Trina discovers that her aunt had died years before; the aunt's husband and a medical friend mummified her.

Carlson explains that when the chronically-ill aunt died at home, her husband:

decided to have his wife embalmed and made into a mummy. That way, he and the children would not lose her presence and might be aided in their grief. So the aunt had been kept in the house [seven years]. They often propped her up at the head of the dining room table during mealtimes. That way she could oversee their family gatherings just as she had done when she was alive. Then, at night, the husband would carry his mummified wife to bed with him so they could sleep together. In the meantime, the whole family would help get her dressed. They'd come her hair--carefully, because it was starting to come out in tufts. Then they'd insert her in her favorite chair in front of the TV so she could watch the soaps and game shows during the day while they were all gone at school and work. 

This is an unusual--but true--story that makes fascinating reading.

Although the rest of the book does not concern mummification, it too is just as fascinating in the human stories it reveals (read through the chapter titles below for a suggestion of what the book covers). People in crisis for a variety of reasons visit a therapist and ask for help. Some of the stories are humorous, but most are sad and rather painful; all are quite unusual (not exactly what Dr. Phil would be treating on his show). Many of the therapists have chosen to share cases from early in their careers, when they were more unsure of how to treat a patient. Although many had firm grounding in a particular theory of human behavior (in other words, they usually had a bias in terms of treatment methods), they found (in many cases) that successful treatment often called for breaking the rules. And break the rules they did!

This book would be an excellent resource for anyone interested in psychology and the human condition. Highly recommended (for adults only).