Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68048 in Books
• Published on: 1991-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

About the Author
Irvin D. Yalom, M.D., is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was the recipient of the 1974 Edward Strecker Award and the 1979 Foundation's Fund Prize in Psychiatry. He is the author of When Nietzche Wept (winner of the 1993 Commonwealth Club gold medal for fiction), Love's Executioner, Every Day Gets a Little Closer (with Ginny Elkin), and the classic textbooks Inpatient Group Psychotherapy and Existential Psychotherapy. Irvin D. Yalom, M.D., is the author of The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy and Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy, among other books. He is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University.

Customer Reviews

A real patient/therapist encounter
What I love about this book is that it takes you into an unspoken territory of patient and therapist. In the same light as a photojournalist goes behind the scenes to capture events; We capture the inside life of both patient and therapist in a moving and human experience. In exchange for money, Dr. Yalom agrees to see Ginny on the basis that they will each write honest and open reports of each session, so he can create this book. We get an inside look into the passion and desire of a therapsit in his faciliatation of change, as well as, a deep look at a struggling patient admitting to her defenses, emotions, and maladaptive behaviors. A wonderful insight into the blossoming of a relationship that will change both therapist and patient. I highly recommend for anyone who is interested in the field of psychology.

Not quite as interesting as I expected
As I am not a student of psychology and not a therapist I read Yalom's books from a layman's point of view, as I find stories of personal development and change very interesting. However, I found this particular book to be somewhat tiresome and I must admit I got a bit bored as I longed for Ginny's process to move on. I guess that reading such detailed descriptions of each session was finally not as exciting as expected. I personally prefer to read the general story of a patient in Yalom's other books with tales of psychotherapy.

Making Sense of the Therapeutic Relationship
This is a very courageous book about a very courageous project. It touched me deeply. Brief entries from a master therapist and a writer patient in which each describes what happened for them in each session over a year or so personalize the therapeutic process. One can read a half dozen self help books about therapy and never come as near to understanding the meaning of the therapeutic relationship as well as in this book. While this is not Yalom's best book in literary terms - he was clearly still thinking about being a writer rather than being one - his willingness to expose his own feelings, needs and strategy as a man and a therapist to both the patient (who got to read his entries periodically) and reader is enriching. The book is a good exposition of Yalom's thesis that therapy is ultimately and primarily about the relationship between patient and therapist in which what goes on in the 45 minute hour is the most important element in healing.