Love's Executioner: & Other Tales of Psychotherapy

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I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy—I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love’s executioner. (c) In this engrossing book, Irvin Yalom gives detailed and deeply affecting accounts of his work with these and seven other patients. Deep down, all of them were suffering from the basic human anxieties - isolation, fear of death or freedom, a sense of the meaninglessness of life - that none of us can escape completely. And yet, as the case histories make touchingly clear, it is only by facing such anxieties head on that we can hope to come to terms with them and develop. Throughout, Dr Jalom remains refreshingly frank about his own errors and prejudices; his book provides a rare glimpse into the consulting room of a master therapist. One of Yalom's greatest assets is that he has always been very open about his flaws, judgments, and humanness. But in this book, he reveals that he has many flaws and more judgments than most people I know. I started reading (well, listening, actually - I did this one on audiobook and managed to mostly ignore mispronunciations of words like "Rogerian" and "Marin County") with stars in my eyes. I was excited to be reading Yalom, who I've always placed on a pedestal as a therapy role model. And I was good for the first 3 or so stories... until "Fat Lady". Like Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, LOVE'S EXECUTIONER is episodic. The ten tales all vary and will affect individual reader's differently. For some reason, I found the case of the morbidly obsese woman deeply moving, while being most unsettled by the cases of the elderly neurobiologist and the elderly accountant--perhaps because they were the patients most similar to me. In comparing Existential Psychotherapy and Psychodynamic practice, there is little difference between these two as it only concerns with clinical intervention. Bateman, Pedder and Brown said, differently named therapies are not distinct with each other, contrary to the popular “yet erroneous belief that they differs from one another” (Bateman, Pedder and Brown, p. 83).

Bateman, Pedder and Brown noted that there had some attempts to compare and contrast existential psychotherapy with psychodynamic practice and with other types of psychotherapy, but nothing substantial has come up yet. Therefore, this paper can only compare these two therapies in the light of their similarities and origin.

Psychotherapy is an interpersonal and relational interference exercised by skilled psychotherapist to assist patients in problems related to day to day life and existence. This frequently contains growing individual sense of comfort and reducing skewed upsetting incidents in life. In this case, psychotherapist make use of a variety of procedures based on observed relationship building, conversation, communication and behaviour transformation and that are intended to recover the mental wellness of a client to develop relationship. Though the problems may be considered “common problems of everyday life,” Love's Executioner made them seem like anything but. Yalom writes his patients with the utmost respect and interest.

Oh, and one last thing I have to highlight upon ending my review, this piece on experiencing "crushes": It is, says Dr. Yalom, only by recognizing the stark facts of human existence, only through full awareness of oneself as mortal, that any one of us, not merely patients in therapy, can come to live as whole creatures. Even after finishing this book a few months ago, this fat-lady-case is still on my mind from time to time. Reading about these ten psychotherapeutic cases was interesting ; the repeated denigratory comments on his patients however were often painful to read. Irvin David Yalom ( / ˈ ɜːr v ɪ n ˈ j æ l ə m/; born June 13, 1931) is an American existential psychiatrist who is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, as well as author of both fiction and nonfiction.

All behavior serves a purpose behavior that is negative in terms of results is dependent of the value of the individual. For those interested in learning more about psychotherapy, and those curious about the therapeutic process itself, this is a must read. Even for the general reader with little interest in psychotherapy, the human stories here are completely absorbing. This is a book about humanity, about finding meaning in seemingly hopeless situations. It will stay with me for a long, long time. These stories are wonderful. They make us realize that within every human being lie the pain and the beauty that make life worthwhile' Bernie S. Siegel But wait! What's this, an afterword! Ah, written 25 years after the book was first published. Now I'll see the wisdom of the man who wrote the introduction! Now, matured and distilled by age and experience, I'll see the wise reflections on his egotistic, insulting asides and comments of his freshman book. In addition to his scholarly, non-fiction writing, Yalom has produced a number of novels and also experimented with writing techniques. In Every Day Gets a Little Closer Yalom invited a patient to co-write about the experience of therapy. The book has two distinct voices which are looking at the same experience in alternating sections. Yalom's works have been used as collegiate textbooks and standard reading for psychology students. His new and unique view of the patient/client relationship has been added to curriculum in psychology programs at such schools as John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

My attention was riveted to her. I went through a turmoil of emotions reading her story, and came out of it with a changed perspective of my own. It was such a wild ride that in the end I felt like both the doctor and the patient being treated. The longest piece, deservingly so. Gerald Corey, 2008 Theory and Practice of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 5 th Edition, U.S.A., Brooks/Cole Publishing Company. Dr. Irving Yalom knows the terrain and the beasts that lurk within... yet I would prefer having Fred C. Dobbs showing me the way in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. At least with Dobbs you know where you stand. Psychodynamic according to Cohn is often used loosely but it supports Walrand Skinner’s definition of psychodynamic as relating to a theory of interacting mental forces, operating within the psyche (p. 1). Cohn noted that psychodynamic is rooted in the psychoanalysis (p. 1). PDF / EPUB File Name: Loves_Executioner_-_Irvin_D_Yalom.pdf, Loves_Executioner_-_Irvin_D_Yalom.epub

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Sylvie Schapira refers dynamic psychotherapy to the unconscious process that takes place between people (Schapira, p. 226). Book Genre: Autobiography, Counselling, Health, Medicine, Memoir, Mental Health, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychiatry, Psychology, Science, Short Stories, Social Science, Social Work What goes on in another person’s mind, someone you never even see, who probably isn’t even aware of your existence, who is caught up in his own life struggles, doesn’t change the person you are.” I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit. (c)

Ugh, I am so disappointed. I very, very badly wanted to love this book. Staring at the Sun was revolutionary, and The Gift of Therapy unequivocally changed who I am as a mental health professional. Yalom has continued to maintain a part-time private practice and has authored a number of video documentaries on therapeutic techniques. Yalom is also featured in the 2003 documentary Flight from Death, a film that investigates the relationship of human violence to fear of death, as related to subconscious influences. The Irvin D. Yalom Institute of Psychotherapy, which he co-directs with Professor Ruthellen Josselson, works to advance Yalom's approach to psychotherapy. This unique combination of integrating more philosophy into the psychotherapy can be considered as psychosophy. While some of those concepts might sound cliche - "how we must construct meaning," "assume responsibility for the course of our lives," "accept and conquer our fear of death" - Yalom presents them in fascinating, complex, and unpretentious ways. He examines his clients with an insightful lens, treats them like humans in an understanding and open relationship, and uses skilled therapeutic techniques to provoke insight and growth. Not all of his stories end on a clean note, and their ambiguous resolutions exemplify the complex and bumpy nature of therapy, similar to the convoluted quality of humans themselves.This is an impressive transformation of clinical experience into literature. Dr Yalom's case histories are more gripping than 98 percent of the fiction published today, and he has gone to amazing lengths of honesty to depict himself as a realistic flesh-and-blood character: funny, flawed, perverse, and, above all, understanding' Phillip Lopate I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy—I too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love's executioner.”(from the opening of the title story) Shahar, Asaf Rolef Ben. “Comparative Evaluation and Criticism of Neuro-Linguistic-Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.” NLP & NLP Psychotherapy,