Writing the Talking Cure: Irvin D. Yalom and the Literature of Psychotherapy

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Existence Pain
	“Autobiographical Note”
	Receiving and Bequeathing Awards
	My Own Autobiographical Note
	The Plan of This Book
	A Dual and Sometimes Conflicted Identity
1. The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy : The Art of Self-Disclosure
	A Deathbed Confession: The Glass Bead Game
	A Foolosopher’s Self-Disclosure: The Iceman Cometh
	Vertical and Horizontal Self-Disclosures
	“That Seems to Be the Way We’re Built”: A Belated Self-Disclosure
	Demystifying Therapy
	Devastating Self-Disclosures
	“Craving for a More Human Relationship”
2. Every Day Gets a Little Closer : A Dual Perspective of Therapy
	“A Twice-Told Therapy”
	A Reluctant Writer
	Literary Self-Consciousness
	Grist for the Therapist’s Mill
	Dual Perspectives
	A Therapist Who Needs Treatment
	Wounded Storytellers and Teachers
	The End of the Story
3. Existential Psychotherapy : Living with Death Anxiety
	Existential Forbears
	Death Anxiety
	A Counterintuitive Theme
	Hemingway’s Death Anxiety
	Insight’s Role in Strengthening the Therapeutic Relationship
	Empirical Support
	Existential Guilt
	Creativity
	Existential Isolation
	Working with Cancer Patients
4. Inpatient Group Psychotherapy : Educating Observers and the Observed
	“Gentling” Anger
	Interactions Between Observers and the Observed
	Promoting Psychological Health
5. Love’s Executioner : Living with Existence Pain
	The Journey from Case Histories into Short Stories
	A Momentologist
	Existence Stories
	A Lovesick Patient: “Love’s Executioner”
	A Parent’s Last Gift: “If Rape Were Legal . . .”
	Confessing Prejudice: “Fat Lady”
	Unfreezing Grief: “The Wrong One Died”
	Showing Me Everything: “I Never Thought It Would Happen to Me”
	Secret Letters: “Do Not Go Gentle”
	Falling in Love with Our Own Creations: “Two Smiles”
	An Ambiguous Ending: “Three Unopened Letters”
	Patient Devotion: “Therapeutic Monogamy”
	Wonderment: “In Search of the Dreamer”
	A Bestseller
	Rereading Love’s Executioner
6. When Nietzsche Wept : Gratitude and Its Discontents
	Yalom and Psychobiography
	Two Flesh-and-Blood Characters
	1882
	Fact and Fiction
	An Untoward Event
	Freud’s Ambivalence Toward His Former Mentor— and Mistrust of Gratitude
	Breuer’s Dilemmas
	Breuer: A Signature Character
	Lost in Back Alleys and Trapdoors
	Creativity and Madness
	Harsh Truths
	“What Are Your Motives?”
	Gratitude and Revenge
	Striking a Bargain
	The Motives Behind Confession
	The Art of Therapy
	A Meeting of Minds
	A Turning Point
	Nietzsche the Therapist
	Perspectivism
	Messengers of Meaning
	The Cemetery
	Breuer’s Trance Session
	Opening Rusty Gates
	“Isolation Exists Only in Isolation”
	A Unique Friendship
	Praise for Yalom’s Novel
7. Lying on the Couch : The Threat of Sexual Boundary Violations
	Truth-Telling and Lying on the Couch
	Seymour Trotter: Portrait of the Artist as a Con Artist?
	The Therapist of Last Resort
	A Cautionary Tale
	Dr. Zweizung
	Another Fallen Idol: Jules Masserman
	A Revenge Plot
	Marshal Streider
	An Earnest Experiment with Therapist Self-Disclosure
	“Mutual Analysis”
	Eroticized Transference
	Wildcat Therapy
	The Wounded Healer
	The End of the Novel
	The Doctor of Desire
	Yalom’s Fictional Experiment
8. Momma and the Meaning of Life : The “Smoldering Inner Compost Heap” of Creativity
	Whose Dream? “Momma and the Meaning of Life”
	A Metaphor for Yalom’s Creativity
	Falling from Grace: “Travels with Paula”
	“Makin’ a Lot Out of Nuthin’ ”: “Southern Comfort”
	Reason versus Treason? “Seven Advanced Lessons in the Therapy of Grief ”
	Overearnest Countertransference: “Double Exposure”
	“Geh Gesunter Heit”: “The Hungarian Cat Curse”
	Critical Praise
9. The Gift of Therapy : The Hazards and Privileges of Being a Therapist
	Feedback
	Therapist Self-Disclosure
	The Touching of Hands
	The Therapist’s Therapy
10. The Schopenhauer Cure : Searching for an Antidote
	An Existential Psychiatrist
	A Psychiatrist Who Writes
	And Who Also Reads
	Other Authorial Qualities
	A Group Psychotherapist
	Death Discovery Day
	A Prickly Biped
	Buddenbrooks
	Striking a Bargain
	Criticizing the Excesses of His Profession
	“A New Life-Form”
	Arthur Schopenhauer
	A Father’s Suicide
	Confessions of a Philosopher
	Schopenhauer and Art
	Schopenhauer and Literature
	The Will
	The Psychological Schopenhauer
	Schopenhauer contra Nietzsche
	Pam Swanvil
	Risky—and Reciprocal—Self-Disclosures
	Selectivity Error
	Dying in Harness
	Arousers and Fulfillers
	Widespread Praise
	Two Endings
11. Staring at the Sun : Novel Healing
	The Use of Therapist Self-Disclosure
	The Awakening Experience
	The Rippling Effect
	Ars moriendi: Yalom and Morrie Schwartz
	Gratitude
	Patients Reading Their Therapist’s Books
	Fiction Imitating Life
	Three Mentors
	Undoing Death
	“Remember Me”
	Life Imitating Fiction
12. The Spinoza Problem : “A Sedative for My Passions”
	A Mysterious Philosopher
	Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg
	Two Invented Characters
	Integrating the Two Stories
	What’s in a Name?
	Yalom’s Spinoza
	An Early Psychologist
	A Critic of Supernatural Religion
	A Passion for Education
	Blessed Reunion
	Rabbi Mortera
	A Quiet Revolutionary
	Early Maternal Loss
	Cherem
	An Assassination Attempt and Exile
	Friendship
	Understanding Spinoza’s Deprecation of Women
	Thorny Spinoza
	Appreciating Stories
	Human Spinoza
	Gazing into the Future: The Myth of the Twentieth Century
	Memoirs
	The Rosenberg Problem
	An Assignment on Goethe
	Doubleness
	The Beginning of “Treatment”
	“Timing Is Everything”
	“Hate in the Counter-Transference”
	Spinozistic Therapy
	The Best and Worst of Human Nature
	A Novelist at the Height of His Powers
13. Creatures of a Day : Anticipating Endings
	Needing a Witness: “The Crooked Cure”
	Therapeutic v. Truthful Endings: “On Being Real”
	The Mirage of Love: “Arabesque”
	The Uncertainty Principle: “Thank You, Molly”
	The Prison of Retirement: “Don’t Fence Me In”
	Deeds Not Thoughts: “Show Some Class for Your Kids”
	Sifting Through Dark Pages: “You Must Give Up the Hope for a Better Past”
	A Pioneer of Dying: “Get Your Own Damn Fatal Illness: Homage to Ellie”
	Seeing Past a Label: “Three Cries”
	Messages to One’s Everyday Self: “Creatures of a Day”
	The Therapist’s Pleasure
Conclusion : Yalom’s Cure and Becoming Myself
	A Lack of Foundation
	The Beginning of a Lifelong Relationship
	Marilyn Yalom
	A Legendary Marriage
	Cultural and Gender Differences in Love
	Anticipated Endings
	Writing Good-Bye: Becoming Myself
Works Cited
Index