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Love's Executioner: & Other Tales of Psychotherapy (Perennial Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Irvin D. Yalom
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 1275
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0060958340
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8914
EAN: 9780060958343
ASIN: 0060958340
Publication Date: September 1, 2000
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Product Description
The collection of ten absorbing tales by master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom uncovers the mysteries, frustrations, pathos, and humor at the heart of the therapeutic encounter. In recounting his patients' dilemmas, Yalom not only gives us a rare and enthralling glimpse into their personal desires and motivations but also tells us his own story as he struggles to reconcile his all-too human responses with his sensibility as a psychiatrist. Not since Freud has an author done so much to clarify what goes on between a psychotherapist and a patient.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 63 more reviews...
 Not impressed. September 6, 2008
In the title story of Love's Executioner, Dr. Yalom recklessly endangers mental stability of his patient. He ends the story with the suggestion that his patient got better because of his unbelievably callous confrontation, yet because she terminated therapy there is no way to know. It is more likely that he actually harmed her. I suspect that if he rereads that story now, he is ashamed of himself and his behavior. He should be!
This case describes his therapy of an older woman whose life was briefly brightened by an affair with a younger man. She clings to the memory of that affair and refuses to move on with her life. Dr. Yalom was unable to establish a therapeutic relationship with this patient and to slowly lead her out of her obsession and help her to reconnect with herself and her life. Instead, he arranges a confrontation with the man she was obsessing with. This act most likely re-traumatized the patient and pushed her out of the therapy setting, leaving her without the last source of support in her life. I highly doubt that she truly got better.
Dr. Yalom offers plenty of rationalizations for his behavior - she would have quit therapy anyway, nothing else was working, may be she got better - but the bottom line is that he has failed her.
I hope the patient has survived.
 A must-read for anyone interested in the modern mind August 6, 2008
This is truly a brilliant book--a classic, if one can use that term. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the human mind, psychology, medicine, and/or literature. Beautifully and compellingly written, this is also a tremendously moving book. It is right up there with the great classic case studies by Freud, the works of Sacks, and of A.R. Luria. It is that good.
Excellent read. June 15, 2008
I am a true fan of Yalom, so I can't help but love his books. However, this is an excellent semi-fictional (to protect confidentiality) book of case studies. Yalom's writing style makes one feel he is talking to you directly. His personal thoughts about the cases are interesting, insightful and often tinted with humor. An enjoyable, yet teachable read.
Liberation April 24, 2008
Along with a mountain of other texts, this book was required reading my first psychotherapy course. I was enrolled in a PhD program in clinical psychology, with a relatively strict orientation towards cognitive behavioral therapy. One of my concerns was that I would have to assume a persona, a guy in a labcoat with a clipboard. The most powerful impact Yalom's book had on me as a young therapy student was the understanding that who I am as a person both would and should impact who I am as a therapist. I felt liberated. Yes, I needed to have a philosophical/theoretical foundation to the work I would do with clients, but who I was would influence the work that I did.
I experienced the "narcissism" that so appalled some reviewers as breathtaking honesty. We are all of us human. Any therapist who reports being free of all unacceptable responses to clients, of never having a thought or engaging in an exchange that was more a function of one's own history and struggles is either deluded or a liar. Should doing therapy with clients be a substitute for addressing all of one's own foibles? Absolutely not, nor does Yalom suggest as much. However, a therapist who experiences clients as "less than," people from whom we can learn nothing, fills me with far more dread than a therapist who acknowledges an ignoble response to a client or the fact that s/he is also imperfect and capable of prejudice. None of us who is honest can say that we have each and every one of these reactions and prejudices perfectly catelogued or perfectly conquered. Life is about growth. I don't think we're supposed to stop doing that until we enter the Great Dirt Nap.
As for those upset by some of his revelations, (e.g., to the "fat lady," his internal sexual response to female clients) I have two questions: 1) Prior to achieving sublime self-actualization wherein I no longer have such inappropriate responses, just what *should* I do about them? Pretend they aren't there? Engage in self-flagellation like a medieval monk? Well, a wise person knows where these approaches lead; 2) Do you really think that the 20 or so pages of each vignette actually encompasses every important aspect of the therapy, or is Yalom attempting to address some very limited themes and issues?
It has been about 18 years since I first read Yalom's book and let me say that I do not conduct therapy as Dr. Yalom does. First, I am not Irvin Yalom, nor have I ever tried to be Irvin Yalom. Secondly, the ugly reality of the field of psychotherapy today is that unless one exclusively services the very wealthy (something I am not willing to do--behold one of my own unconquered prejudices), we are very limited as to the time we can spend with our clients. I still consider myself to be a cognitive-behavioral therapist, an orientation of which Yalom is not a big fan. I also have some disagreements with Yalom regarding the value of diagnosis and other matters. But in addition to the early liberation I described above, Yalom's wonderful book has helped me to be less doctrinaire, more flexible, willing to embrace alternate approaches and more client-focused, more accepting of my own imperfections and understanding the absolute necessity of addressing them. I think I'm a damned good therapist, and I thank Yalom and this book for setting me on the road.
When starting work with an intern, I typically give them a copy of this book. As a goodbye, I give a copy of Yalom's The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients. The latter is an excellent selection of brief lessons in conducting psychotherapy and is also highly recommended. I can't guarantee that every psychotherapist-in-training or practicing psychotherapist who reads them will have a transforming experience, but I would hope that at minimum one would pick up an idea or two that will positively impact your practice in the future.
Magnificent! March 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am really unclear as to how this book might have received anything less than 5 stars... It was recommended to me by my psychotherapy supervisor, at my request to read something a little more digestible than our textbook on said subject. I began reading and was immediately immersed in a magical, mysterious field of psychoanalysis that had been previously hidden from me! As promised, I not only learned, but enjoyed the learning, and hardly realized that I did learn throughout the journey that was this novel of short stories. I literally could not put the book down, and so apparently thought the others who read this book from my public library; the book itself has been read so many times that it has literally fallen apart into three separate sections. I am now a better therapist, and a happier person for having read this book- Thank you, Dr. Yalom!
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