He is well-read and, even in the very short chapters that characterize this book (often two pages or less), Yalom may refer to Schopenhauer, Hesse, and Rilke, the way that I refer to my best friends and my children.

The existential psychotherapy approach posits that the inner conflict bedeviling us issues not only from our struggle with suppressed instinctual strivings or internalized significant adults or shards of forgotten traumatic memories, but also f rom our confrontation with the “givens” of existence.But they are only doing their job: have I not asked them to disclose all feelings, thoughts, and dreams? On that note, his clients are characters but they are also normal enough to normalize what receiving therapy may be like---so if you are considering it for yourself this is a good way to test the waters of your pre-contemplation. Young psychiatrists are forced to specialize in psychopharmacology because third-party payers now reimburse for psychotherapy only if it is delivered by low-fee (in other words, minimally trained) practitioners. So much of it resonates with my beliefs about what therapy should be, which too often is not what we're taught or how many of us behave. I'm usually a library reader, but I'm glad I bought this one, because I'll be reading it again and again.

In other and plainer words: it is one thing to explicitly start a discussion about death, isolation, meaning and freedom (content), and a completely another thing to implicitly derive conclusions from stories which seemingly bear no relation to these existential topics. What do the words tell us about the nature of the relationship between the parties engaged in the interaction?

A documentary film, Yalom’s Cure, about his remarkable life is emblematic of his life’s work: an existential journey through the human psyche. These ideas are so personal, opinionated, and occasionally original that the reader is unlikely to encounter them elsewhere. While I definitely think there are some universal lessons that apply to all counselors no matter where you're working there were a lot that I don't think apply to a beginning counselor. Friendship between therapist and patients is a necessary condition in the process of therapy - necessary, but not, however, sufficient.