The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients
Acclaimed author and renowned psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom distills thirty-five years of psychotherapy wisdom into one brilliant volume.
The culmination of master psychiatrist Dr. Irvin D. Yalom’s more than thirty-five years in clinical practice, The Gift of Therapy is a remarkable and essential guidebook that illustrates through real case studies how patients and therapists alike can get the most out of therapy. The bestselling author of Love’s Executioner shares his uniquely fresh approach and the valuable insights he has gained—presented as eighty-five personal and provocative “tips for beginner therapists,” including:
•Let the patient matter to you
•Acknowledge your errors
•Create a new therapy for each patient
•Do home visits
•(Almost) never make decisions for the patient
•Freud was not always wrong
A book aimed at enriching the therapeutic process for a new generation of patients and counselors, Yalom’s Gift of Therapy is an entertaining, informative, and insightful read for anyone with an interest in the subject.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
A therapist talks about his job.
I was waiting for tricks and tools. Then examples or success stories and failures. Yet this is all over the place. He talks about one patient then jumps to another. And his tools are "be like a friend to the client". That's it. He recommends touching and hugging the client if that's what it takes as "that's what good friends do". And that's that. I don't see many good ideas or lessons here.
He doesn't understand what works or why. He can't even illustrate the methods logically or systematically. It's all over the place and mainly based on guesses.
I want to know why people go to therapy and what they get out of it. This book doesn't quite answer it. But from reading this I feel the answer is: most don't as it doesn't help them. At least his patients are seeking a good friend and he plays one for money. It reminds me of the movie Pretty Woman where a prostitute is hired to play a partner. If that's the service people seek they have to pay an extremely steep price which means most can't afford it. But it does sound extremely creepy and I wonder how soon AI can replace this stuff because it's extremely easy to take sexual advantage of suffering patients, as he himself also points out. It's a huge risk factor we surely cannot ever accept. And the only way to solve this is move it all online.
I was waiting for tricks and tools. Then examples or success stories and failures. Yet this is all over the place. He talks about one patient then jumps to another. And his tools are "be like a friend to the client". That's it. He recommends touching and hugging the client if that's what it takes as "that's what good friends do". And that's that. I don't see many good ideas or lessons here.
He doesn't understand what works or why. He can't even illustrate the methods logically or systematically. It's all over the place and mainly based on guesses.
I want to know why people go to therapy and what they get out of it. This book doesn't quite answer it. But from reading this I feel the answer is: most don't as it doesn't help them. At least his patients are seeking a good friend and he plays one for money. It reminds me of the movie Pretty Woman where a prostitute is hired to play a partner. If that's the service people seek they have to pay an extremely steep price which means most can't afford it. But it does sound extremely creepy and I wonder how soon AI can replace this stuff because it's extremely easy to take sexual advantage of suffering patients, as he himself also points out. It's a huge risk factor we surely cannot ever accept. And the only way to solve this is move it all online.
What a gift the book has proven as I embarked on my first therapy session...I'm 49 and this was a new (and yes, scary) undertaking.
I found myself pausing between passages and having imaginary conversations with myself. I've gained the vocabulary that I lacked to describe my confusion while simultaneously being comforted by the vignettes...others have the same symptoms that I do. As with everyone, I'm sure, I have my own blockages that I need to name, see and address, but the themes are more universal than I thought. And that's a sincere relief. God, what a relief. So logical and obvious but still, to understand that I'm not an unicorn and understanding that others have navigated similar life situations made me more hopeful than I have been in a long time.