Existential Psychotherapy, Irvin D. Yalom

Nothing in the world has significance except by virtue of one's own creation. There are no rules, no ethical systems, no values; there is no external referent whatsoever; there is no grand design in the universe...
To experience existence in this manner is a dizzying sensation. Nothing is as it seemed. The very ground beneath one seems to open up. Indeed groundlessness is a commonly used term for a subjective experience of responsibility awareness.

p. 221

(p. 268) 'Many therapists are professional advocates of responsibility but secretly, in their own hearts and in their own belief systems, are environmental determinists.'

In other words: even therapists who get payed to help people take responsibility for their lives often don't believe we can... The cynic in me ads that these same therapists are in fact financially dependent on people NOT taking responsibility for their own lives. Or from a more friendly perspective: therapists get to see people who are NOT taking responsibility for their lives, all day. And in each case they have to try and help them take responsibility, yet they see examples of the opposite so often it's hard to keep believing it's possible to change. Especially since people who do change always get out of their lives.

This paradox is partly solved these days by therapeutic journeys usually having a fixed length these days: the client knows in advance that the therapy will end so they WILL have to take responsibility at some point.

Yalom quotes the ancient philosopher Epictetus who said: (p. 272)

I must die. I must be imprisoned. I must suffer exile. But must I die groaning? Must I whine as well? Can anyone hinder me from going into exile with a smile? The master threatens to chain me: what say you? Chain me? My leg you will chain - yes, but not my will - no, not even Zeus can conquer that.

Yalom ads: One's attitude towards one's situation is the very crux of being human (p. 272)

Irvin David Yalom (b. June 13 1931 in Washington DC), M.D., is an author of fiction and nonfiction, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, an existentialist, and accomplished psychotherapist.

Born in a Jewish family in Washington DC in 1931, he grew up in a poor ethnic area. Avoiding the perils of his neighborhood, he spent most of his childhood indoors, reading books. After graduating from Boston University School of Medicine in 1956 he went on to complete his internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and his residency at the Phipps Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and completed his training in 1960. After two years of Army service at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu, Dr. Yalom began his academic career at Stanford University. He was appointed to the faculty in 1963 and then promoted over the next several years and granted tenure in 1968. Soon after this period he made some of his most lasting contributions by teaching about group psychotherapy and developing his model of existential psychotherapy.

In addition to his scholarly, non-fiction writing, Dr. Yalom has produced a number of novels and also experimented with writing techniques. In "Everyday Gets a Little Closer" Dr. 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. Dr. 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.

The American Psychiatric Association awarded Irvin Yalom the 2000 Oscar Pfister prize (for important contributions to religion and psychiatry).

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