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★★★★★ 5
Required reading for novice (and maybe all?) therapists
Format: Hardcover
As a therapist-in training, this book made a powerful impact on me. As a father of two small children, on the verge of a professional milestone (PhD graduation in June), in the midst of an internship where I'm frequently working with children and teens coping with grief or trauma, mortality has been much on my mind lately, framing core values in my process of professional identity formation. In my five years of clinical training so far, I have increasingly become aware that the healing that occurs in therapy is much more about inter-relational "being" than "doing" (i.e the "sheer presence" of the therapist which Dr. Yalom describes in the book), and also that each successful therapy invents its own (often singular) techniques. This of course departs sharply from the idea that human suffering and its therapeutic repair could ever be helpfully reduced to categories or manuals. During my training in the current climate of "evidence-based practices," I have sometimes felt rather isolated adopting that position (although I am fortunate in my internship of finding many like-minded supervisors and colleagues). In that context, the insights imparted in this story collection serve as inspiring confirmation that I am on the right track, and offer a model of the type of therapist I aspire to be someday. I am grateful for the wise mentorship conveyed through Dr. Yalom's narratives.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2015
