Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
 Great Insight!, Sep 12, 2023
As a therpast in training this book was great! I loved reading about Yalom's version of his therapy sessions. I also enjoyed the fact that he is painfully honest. He does not deny that he is human and is willing to discuss his prejudices and downfalls as a therapist. The stories that he includes are both interesting and touching. I highly recommend this book!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Superb, Jul 29, 2023
This short book contains a lot. Mr. Yalom is well known for his limitless wisdom and research regarding group therapy. This book is very witty and entertaining. What I like most is that the author reveals some of his inner dialogue when working with clients. This is very revealing and refreshing; to know that even therapists have issues and, as any good therapist knows, regularly receive psychotherapy themselves. I would recommend this book to anyone. I don't recall there being any 'psychobabble' or terms that are used exclusively by therapists. Mr. Yalom very simply presents the lives of some very complex people.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
please? what is wrong with you people?, May 5, 2023
If any of you reader-critic people think you're encountering a therapist or Doctor or friend who sees you without judgement--then you're simply fooling yourselves. Anyone who pretends they've got no judgement of you is selling you something. Even the holiest of humans judge--I'm sure of it. Get over yourselves--we are limited, we are not perfect. Yalom speaks the truth about his countertransference and that is a gift to all who are involved in the therapeutic enterprise. It is when we deny the shadow that we are in real trouble. Fat may not disgust everyone it is true--but this is Yalom's experience, and this is what he gives us unabashedly. Can you not find it within yourselves to allow him his feelings? Unconditional positive regard can only happen with full acknowledgement of all projections good and bad.
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
A word about some of the negative reviews..., Sep 29, 2023
It seems that there's more than a bit of transferance occuring with some of the reviewers here. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinions but some of the reviewers here seem to have either missed the point of Dr. Yalom's stories or are simply incapable of seeing past their entrenched prejudices and preconceptions.Some readers are apparently unable to come to grips with one of the central theses of Yalom's book, which is that the therapist is just as human and prone to error and prejudice as his patients. If anything, Yalom is almost embarrassingly honest about his often extremely negative reactions to many of his patients. He doesn't candy-coat any of it. In this book we get Irvin Yalom, M.D., warts and all, just as he promises in his introduction. The critics who cannot accept a "human" doctor are symptomatic of the greater societal damand that medical professionals should be (no, MUST be) above all emotion save those of the most magnanimous and saintly variety. We expect doctors to be godlike, above pettiness and messy "unseemly" thoughts and feelings. Bah. Hogwash. Dr. Yalom's triumph here is the explosion of such myths. He is not St. Yalom, ministering from his pedestal of medical and moral perfection. He is Irvin Yalom the Man, as prone to judgment as any of us. His unflinching self-criticism and honesty -- with his patients, himself, and his readers -- is what makes this such a remarkable book and Yalom such a remarkable therapist. If you're the sort who feels a psychic need to see doctors as superhuman this book will prove very disturbing to you. Those realistic enough to know this is ridiculous fantasy will be enlightening, entertained, and touched.
5 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
 physician, heal thyself, & look in the mirror too!, Jul 26, 2023
i've read dr. yalom's book twice now. i couldn't agree more with the other reviewers who are taken aback by his disgust for his patients. different reviewers admired his "bravery," but i, as a humanist and also someone in the medical profession, think he uses his book almost as anintellectually masturbatory confessional. i have always been fat and though it is "nice" to know the truth of the contempt that many people hold for fat people, it is difficult to read this coming from a psychotherapist who uses his overweight patient only, it seems, to massage his psyche. i expect more. i expect compassion, empathy, MATURITY, and the ability to accept and even enjoy people's differences. yalom missed the boat here. i wouldn't pay him a dime for analysis. there are so many better, more mature, less projecting, less narcissistic therapists out there. nu, you've been warned! :-)
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Based on 30 reviews.