Gift of Therapy, The: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients (P.S.)

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This tragic but realistic view of life has long influenced my relationship to those who seek my help. Though there are many phrases for the therapeutic relationship (patient/therapist, client/counselor, analysand/analyst, client/facilitator, and the latest—and, by far, the most repulsive—user/provider), none of these phrases accurately convey my sense of the therapeutic relationship. Instead I prefer to think of my patients and myself as fellow travelers, a term that abolishes distinctions between "them" (the afflicted) and "us" (the healers). During my training I was often exposed to the idea of the fully analyzed therapist, but as I have progressed through life, formed intimate relationships with a good many of my therapist colleagues, met the senior figures in the field, been called upon to render help to my former therapists and teachers, and myself become a teacher and an elder, I have come to realize the mythic nature of this idea. We are all in this together and there is no therapist and no person immune to the inherent tragedies of existence.

He has written as many fiction as non-fiction books, the most famous of which, When Nietzsche Wept, was adapted into a movie in 2007. What about clinical psychology training programs — the obvious choice to fill the gap? Unfortunately, clinical psychologists face the same market pressures and doctorate-granting schools of psychology are responding by teaching a therapy which is symptom-oriented, brief, and, hence, reimbursable. Patients want therapists to pay attention to the minute details of their life: This gives a good jump-start on bonding. I didn't understand that asking patients to be your therapist, analyzing their dreams, trying to be their friend, insisting that the patient-therapist relationship resembles all the rest of the patient's relationships, insisting that there's always an interpersonal conflict with a subconscious nature that is at the roots of one's emotional disturbance, using your own feelings about the client as a compass, etc. could serve a therapeutic purpose.

Yalom writes with the narrative wit of O. Henry and the earthy humor of Isaac Bashevis Singer.”— San Francisco Chronicle Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said that if he had eight hours to cut down a tree, he’d spend several of these hours sharpening his ax.” If my therapy sessions were observed, one might often look in vain for lengthy explicit discussions of death, freedom, meaning, or existential isolation. Such existential contentmay only be salient for some patients (but not all patients) at some stages (but not all stages) of therapy. In fact, the effective therapist should never try to force discussion of any content area: therapy should not be theory-driven but relationship-driven.

One other factor influenced my selection of these eighty-five items. My recent novels and stories contain many descriptions of therapy procedures I’ve found useful in my clinical work but, since my fiction has a comic, often burlesque tone, many readers are unclear if I am serious or not about the therapy procedures I describe. The Gift of Therapyoffers me an opportunity to set the record straight. However, he says, this is exceedingly problematic today, because, in Yalom’s opinion, the field in serious crisis. v Effective therapy consist of an alternating sequence of evocation and experiencing of affect followed by analysis and integration of affect. It is daunting to realize that I am entering a designated later era of life,” writes one of America’s leading psychotherapists, Irvin D. Yalom, at the beginning of The Gift of Therapy. Irvin D. Yalom is an American existential psychotherapist, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, and a bestselling author of both non-fiction and fiction books.Though I selected these suggestions haphazardly and expect many readers to sample these offerings in an unsystematic manner, I have tried, as an afterthought, to group them in a reader-friendly fashion. I believe "technique" is facilitative when it emanates from the therapist's unique encounter with the patient. [E]very course of therapy consists of small and large spontaneously generated responses or techniques that are impossible to program in advance.” The Gift of Therapy is primarily a book targeting therapists: especially those who already know something about Yalom and existential therapy and are familiar with the theoretical aspects of the practice.