Irvin D. Yalom , anyone?

So my new T said he was heavily influenced by Irvin D. Yalom , so I've been doing a little research and I came upon this website

http://www.renee-baker.com/2011/05/2...yaloms-advice/

#9 - "Share your thoughts or dreams of your clients with them, if productive.* “Let your patients matter to you, to let them enter your mind, influence you, change you – and not conceal this from them.”

50 Tips for Counselors - A compilation of Irvin Yalom's Advice
I think this is wonderful and I am feeling better about new T.
Anyone have experience with Yalom?

I Irvin Yalom. My T is awesome, he really is, but sometimes I wish he would read Yalom and take some of his wisdom to heart, in terms of constructing and maintaining boundaries. In one of his books, for example, he says something like it would be inhumane to refuse to hold a patient's hand during a crisis, if the patient asked for that--that boundaries should be ethical of course but also flexible if doing so would benefit the patient.

I have read the Gift of Therapy, which is a collection of short pieces of advice, written for other Ts. I've also read A Twice Told Therapy, a book that puts together one of his patient's written reflections on the therapy process, session by session, and his reflections as well. Almost like letters they wrote to each other over time. This book inspired me to begin keeping a therapy journal, which has been so helpful for me (I don't share it with T but he knows I write about each session).

I haven't read the Gift of Therapy, but I have read A Twice Told Therapy, and I thought Yalom was one of the creepier people I had ever read. I really, really would be unsettled if my T acted like Yalom. For me, it was like Yalom was encouraging the client to have sexual fantasies about him. I have enough issues with my feelings for my T without feeling like he's actively encouraging me to think of him sexually.

I don't know. I've read some of his books but (for me) he was way to open about his feelings (i.e. too narcissistic for a T- I'd like to think my T is "better than that"). Somewhat I didn't like his attitude towards women...

However, the tips you've mentioned looks great.

LOL. Yeah, I can see how he could come across that way. He's pretty traditional in some ways (keep in mind he's in his seventies, so his training was very much old school) and he does have a unique style that definitely wouldn't work for everyone...OTOH, sometimes I read about others' Ts here, and I'm like It's a good thing none of us are One Size Fits All

I've read 2 of his books, the 50 tips one (srry forgot title) and loves executioner, which I loved. Though I don't agree 100% with everything, I loved the way he was. Anyways, after reading loves executioner that's when I really started to open up to my T.

I live in the bay area and he has an office in palo alto (20min from me) and one in San Francisco (45 min from me). I called him one day to see how much he charges and I left a mssg and he called me back within 2 hours and was very warm on the phone...he asked bout my situation and then we talked payment. He charges a lil over $200 ($215?) an hour & when I told him I could afford that he gave me the # to a diff T & he still talked to me for 10 min after. I really liked him. I like my T but if he could be like Yalom... )

Anyways ack to the point...srry rambling haha. If my T said what your new T said about Yalom, I'd be very happy too! I hope your new T keeps going good for you! I wish my T would be influenced by yalom a lil bit. (he doesn't care for him it seemed :/)

i've read some of his books; some things seem really good ... powerful, helpful
others of his thoughts and personal preferences i found extremely unhelpful, destructive and hurtful; so mixed feelings about him

I haven't read any of his books but I did see an extract, where he encouraged Ts to allow themselves to love their patients. That was huge for me.

I read it out in group, and the co-facilitator seemed to approve. (My T wasn't there that week.)

T2 seemed interested to hear that I had read some of Yalom's writing. I liked "the gift of therapy", but other books showed him just creepily self-absorbed (enough about you, client, let's talk about me, how you love me, how you think of me ... eeewwwww run away!!)

and that I had read "Staring at the Sun" and found him pathetic - in fact, feeling so sorry for him that I started to write him a letter, but never sent it, deciding he'd just trash it.

There, T, if you are reading PC after all - now you know, I am SAWE.

hmm, only a little over $200/session? I thought someone who is such a "legend" in the field would charge even more... hell, there are young-ish master's levels therapists where I live charging almost that much.

Not like *I* could afford that, but still...

He's an existential therapist, which I like. So his approach, in general, is one that would work with me. I liked most of the vignettes in Love's Executioner, but one in particular really rubbed me the wrong way and tainted my view of Yalom. Then much later I read Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, and really liked that book. It was just the thing for me at the time, when my father was dying. More recently I started reading Lying on the Couch, a novel, and found it so distasteful I couldn't finish. So I have mixed experience and thoughts on Yalom. In a psychology course I took last year, the professor spoke very disdainfully about Yalom. My interpretation was that the professor wanted Yalom to be more scholarly and not publish these pop-psych books for the public, as if they were theoretically valid and sound. (Could he just be envious of Yalom's success as an author?)

I found out yesterday that a Yalom book is required for a course I'm taking next term: Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. I think this is a classic and believe Yalom is most known in the academic world for his contributions to group therapy. So I hope I like it!

Yalom wrote a book I found super entertaining, a series of portraits of his patients (names were changed). At the time I had never known anyone else who had done therapy, and I was fascinated by his clients' stories.

I loved the story about The Bag Lady, who came to every session with a gigantic bag full of crap. During one of their sessions he said, "Show me everything in your bag." And it was wonderful - a portrait of this woman's life emerged from her stories about the things she was carrying. I can't recall her name now but I think it was something like Ella. He teased her about all her stuff. "Two staplers, Ella? You really need two of them?" It was funny and sweet and very touching.

One of the portraits in the book disturbed me quite a bit though - he had a young woman who had been physically abused by her father. She was exceptionally beautiful, and Yalom was really struck by her - so much so that he seemed unable to see her as a person in the round. He compared her to famous beauties in history and in literature, and turned her into a sort of abstract figure representing Beauty with a capital B.

Strong reactions in the therapist toward their clients along these lines - call it counter-transference if you like - can really screw up the therapeutic process. This guy was SO blinded by his own reaction to this woman, that he was unable to help her. He just didn't see her as human. I think she suffered as a result. The descriptions of their sessions read as very chilly.

For an insightful guy whose purpose in writing his book was at least partly self-reflective, Yalom showed an amazing lack of insight about his own inadequacy of response to his challenging client. A responsible therapist would have realized he wasn't the right helper for her, and he would have referred her.

(Sunrise, was that the vignette you didn't like?)

One strange blind spot and blot on an otherwise excellent book IMHO.

I read that too and realized that at bottom he was probably a bit of a misogynist because in his other books/vignettes, all of the descriptions of female people relied heavily on appearance but males were dealt with as "whole" although not perfect people. the "flatness" of the women really struck me as problematic, and probably emblematic of his problem with women.

Yick, was my reaction!

to each, his own. But not my favorite.

Isn't this the guy who said he had a problem with overweight female clients? I'm sure I read that on a thread here somewhere. That type of thing puts me off a person! I haven't read any of his books, though I'm sure there's good stuff in there as well as things that might make me think, as MCL puts it: 'Yick!'

In Yalom's book with the vignettes of his clients, there was one overweight client, and he ultimately helped her to lose weight. He showed a lot of empathy with her when she was irritable. He said he felt he understood her frustration - he oftened looked forward to having a pizza for dinner, and he felt it must be hard for her (she was on a liquid diet for months).

I didn't think that particular case showed him in a bad light...But I do have problems with his treatment of a different client.

I really love to read Yalom One thing I like is his curiosity, and that he has gone engaged in several types of therapy, both individual and group. It can be hard to read him if you expect to hear only the therapeutic part of the therapist. Even therapists have many parts .

My therapist has a friend who lives in CA. and who knows Yalom enough to state that he is "difficult". I would imagine he is. Although I didn't read the entire book, I read part of "Staring at the Sun" and he reveals one of his own dreams, easily analyzed as a simple death dream (elevator going up, etc.) and I laughed out loud at how absolutely mortified that he would have such a 'common' dream! Oh, too funny. So, I can imagine his self-assuredness and his successes make him a bit egotistical and "difficult". Still, I like to read him

I have read three of his books just beacause I kept trying to figure out why some like him.i found him insufferable. I like Alice Miller, Susan Clancy and judith Herman. Clancy is controversial for some.

Thanks everyone on all the advice. So what I'm hearing is that his methods and ideology for the most part seem good. However, his personal issues regarding women and beauty are truly his Achilles heal?

And his enormous ego and self centeredness.

I'll have to ask T exactly how influenced.

this is where i came unstuck with him; his absolute disgust with his client and not being able to look at her or touch her and thinking she wouldn't notice this, ugh

That was hard to read, but the book was for therapists, too, and was to encourage therapists to explore their own feelings, their counter-transference. I admired his honesty about it, his willingness to explore those thoughts and feelings. In retrospect, he was not pleased with himself for how his feelings influenced her therapy.

this is one of the reasons why I like Yalom so much. He was just so blazingly honest and aware of his own feelings and prejudices. He's very honest with the reader too.

I think it's a truth in therapy that people do not want to look at or think about - the "counter transference", but it certainly happens.

Yalom simply laid his bare for all to see. He is also very upfront about his mistakes. Very human, very honest.

I think he might be a dynamite therapist - although in love's executioner he does tend to relate everything to fear of death... not sure that's the root of all problems, but whatever.

Does anyone know the name of this book?

I have read one of his books and there were things I liked and things I didn't like.

I think it might be The Gift of Therapy, one of my favorites.