Love's Executioner, and other therapy books

StressedMess, hear hear!

JustShakey, a part of me likes that he is honest about sharing these things, the humanness and flaws of a therapist, that they too can be judgmental and all that. It takes courage. But another part of me sees him not just sharing, in a humble respectful way, his own limitation, but sharing in a non-apologetic way (despite the very offensive nature of his inner thoughts), almost as if he's having fun at the expense of the client who is unaware of his inner world, as if he is proud of his ability to fake it.

Surely Yalom himself could have a strong reaction reading this, if he had been the one on the receiving end of therapy, and if his therapist, a young woman, later expressed in her book, her nausea at hugging the wrinkled old body of a client. Or her disgust at the Jewish identity or the mannerism of a certain client. People often feel vulnerable in therapy, and are encouraged to open up and allow themselves to be vulnerable, so they can receive healing. To read his descriptions certainly does not make one want to open up to a T or trust them.

Therapists are certainly allowed to feel negative things and can also share a lot of what bothers them, with other therapists in confidential meetings where they can express their feelings freely and support each other. In addition, therapists can receive therapy. However, when Yalom, as a renowned professor and therapist, writes a pop psychology book, he could have been more careful about what he shares with the public. And how he words it.

It's interesting-I had the same opinion of Yalom but I end up second guessing myself so much, often times, because I was so wounded by a few therapists that I wonder if I am seeing things through that lens. I am glad to see that others feel the same way, that it isn't just me and just because of what happened to me. Thank you for your post.

Many many years ago when I was in college, we used Yalom's book on group techniques. I liked what he had to say and as someone else mentioned, he showed solid insight into group dynamics. Later, I read some of his other books related to his own thoughts on psychotherapy and some of the clients he's worked with over the years. I liked those too until I read his description of the elderly woman and his repulsion to the overweight woman. I haven't been able to read anything of his since. Pompous, arrogant and a massive ego came to my mind. I felt he might be brave to bare his "sins" regarding his true reactions to these women, but I also couldn't help thinking, "What the heck was this guy doing in the helping professions?!" He was too wrapped up into the physical appearance of women and his own physical need to have women admire him and for him to be attracted to them. Yuck!

I've read a bit of 'The gift of therapy', I think I stopped after the chapter where he emphasised the importance of *male* therapists to be sexually satisfied in their personal lives... to avoid sleeping with patients, even if it meant visiting prostitutes. Perhaps he has problems keeping his **** in his pants, doesn't mean every man does.

Read Stephen Grosz' 'The examined Life' - it's brilliant.

I think the example that most described Yalom's egotistical image of himself was when he was upset with a client for not being more curious about him.

Not that I embrace his particular viewpoint, and I certainly know female Ts have their faults too. However, there is a point to what he says here given that predatory and abusive therapists tend to be males. The solution that male therapists should stay satisfied outside therapy is a bit dated, although this behavior still isn't unusual for men impositions of power. I often wonder why men like this opt to become therapists in the first place.

Statistically, there are predatory female therapists out there, but fewer.
Sex Between Therapists and Clients

There's much talk in ethics discussions about the slippery slope. In other words, exploiting therapists don't start out that way. Like every other criminal, the offending therapists have every manner of justification.

Among the offensive things in Yalom's book, he strikes me as dispensing with the Thelma's sexual exploitation quickly, as if it's incidental to a hilarious account of a pathetic 70-year-old woman. In truth, sexual exploitation and eroticized therapy is a trip through hell for most people who deal with it. (Trigger alerts on my posts out of respect for readers here recovering from that.)

I don't see the aftermath of sexual exploitation as a subject for merry entertainment. I wouldn't want a health provider treating me thinking: what a repulsive, deluded woman. She'd make an uproariously funny book chapter.

I read Yalom thinking 1) he wanted the reader to be in awe of his brilliance 2) he wanted the reading to join him in his snickering derision of some of his pitiable clients.

Procedurally too, he seemed to do all the interpreting and thinking for his patients. He barely perceived them with inner lives beyond the problems they brought him to solve for them.

And I'd love a hug too, thanks
Your username is a pretty good description of how I'm doing lately I know I'm doing the right thing, but it's scary as hell. I have tonnes of support though and I'm really grateful (unfortunately a little intimidated too, because of my own stuff, but at least I know it is my own stuff and I'm doing my best to be open about it)


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Hmm, I'm all the more curious now. Like I say, I haven't read Yalom, but I like the style of that little snippet. I get the feeling that his words can be taken many ways. I'll have to read for myself and see...

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Oh crap! Now, I'm really curious about this jack ***. I do believe every occupation has employees who offer better treatment to attractive clients. It's sickening discrimination that society chooses to ignore. I worked with a beautiful girl who had problems with migraines. She was in the ER in high school suffering in pain. A freaking doctor came out into the waiting room, picked her up, cradled her in his arms, and carried her back to a hospital room. I'm mean seriously - give me a flipping break! Attractive people make more money and for the most part receive preferential treatment.

I read The Gift of Therapy and found it useful. I read Love's Executioner and haven't really been able to get past that. It was so awful how repulsed he was by the overweight woman. What kind of therapist is that to be so very superficial? Later I read Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death and that was probably my favorite one, very relevant to what I was dealing with at that time in my life. For school I had to read his Group Therapy tome, and that was very professional and useful. I would not read any more of his fiction after Love's Executioner. I think he should stick with non-fiction. In his fiction he just comes across as a really yucky guy.

Oh, that's priceless. Because obviously all men think of sex all the time, and equally obviously, women are perfectly fine if they don't get sex ever. *facepalm* *headdesk*

I have never heard of Yalom outside these boards and never felt interested or curious about his writings - all extracts I have read show that he is not somebody whose line of thinking is compatible with mine. Besides, I don't exactly need yet another confirmation of the fact that as a non-attractive woman I don't really have the right to exist in the eyes of some people.

I read the book and I also read an article HE wrote about the fact that he hated fat women. ick. Shame on him.

Since I'm on the iPod I don't have the "hug" function like I do on my PC but here's a hug! I'm curious about why you think you're a non-attractive woman. I'm not just being nosy, it's just that I feel the same way, and we might be kindred spirits.

My weight fluctuates and even at my thinnest I still feel unattractive. Not "ugly" or "hideous" just "plain" if you will. The heavier I am the worse I feel. But I'm convinced that self-esteem alone is not my issue. The planet is populated with so many different people, and we aren't all physically beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but where did the phrase "a face only a mother could love" come from? Being kind to myself doesn't mean deluding myself, either.

Sorry to carry the thread further off topic. I think the attitudes of this writer bring out the more militant feelings in me!

Thanks, StressedMess

Attractiveness is indeed in the eye of the beholder, and as my therapist once said, physical beauty doesn't actually have that much to do with attraction. Besides which, standards of beauty vary: my T made some wonderful comment about how today's supermodels would be laughed off the catwalk in Rubens' day. But since attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, the fact that people do not get attracted to me and never have can only mean that I'm unattractive. I'm not unpleasant (despite the fact that I sometimes post rather unpleasant things here) and I do have many friends. But I am not attractive. Which is ok, I'm 41 and am securely married so it shouldn't matter. (It does, though. )

Being married and being satisfied with yourself are not mutually exclusive.

I've been having self-esteem conversations with my teenager these days, in regards to whether her boyfriend could truly be attracted to her. She also struggles with weight and body image among all her other issues. She can't conceive of someone being physically attracted to her and I can't for the life of me explain it to her.

No platitudes about how beautiful we are in the inside, just knowledge others are struggling too. It sucks for all of us!

You know, I honestly think that how attractive you are depends on how attractive you think you are. Easier said than done I know, and I don't have body issues (fortunately enough) so I can't really speak to it.
I read the snippet about the elderly woman and I feel Yalom is conveying deep sadness and her having given up rather than disgust and dislike. And it's fiction - in fiction we can explore ideas that are not necessarily our own. JMHO, but I also think part of becoming truly mature is being able to tolerate ideas and opinions that do not necessarily jive with our own without becoming distressed or overly judgmental.

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I dislike Yalom because of his non-fiction attitudes.
I don't like his fiction either but that is just because I don't find it compelling.

I love Yalom's books and appreciate most of his work a lot (with a few exceptions and I also dislike his arrogance). I think he mostly does some great work though.

I am currently reading "Beyond Empathy: The Therapy of Contact in Relationship" by Richard Erskine, Janet Moursund, and Rebecca Trautmann. I don't agree with a few things in it, but overall I agree to its basic ideas and I find that the type of therapy it promotes to be very respectful and complex. It's also very well written in my opinion - I love the metaphors and therapy vignettes it uses to explain and illustrates the concepts and ideas presented.

I'm almost finished reading "Schopenhauer's Porcupines: Intimacy and its Dilemmas." It is also an insider's view to the therapist's experience with clients but from a woman's perspective.

I've read "Love's Executioner," "The Gift of Therapy," "Lying on the Couch" and "Everyday Gets a Little Closer: A Twice Told Therapy" and struggled with Yalom's strong opinions although I find him more respectable from an existentialist perspective.

http://nedic.ca/fat-therapeutic-issu...nd-our-clients

Love's Executioner, which I believe technically would be creative non-fiction, struck me as Yalom self-promoting and self-congratulating. I didn't feel one moment of connection to the patients he wrote about; the book was all about HIM. I also felt Yalom as his patients' mouthpiece, treatment seemed about HIS interpretations, rather than the patients arriving at their own insights.

I give Yalom credit for fluid, vivid prose. But again, I wouldn't want someone treating me with "how can I turn her into a book chapter" in the back of his mind. I also think a patient is in an unfair, overpowered position if her doctor requests consent to publish.

I cringe when a mental health provider writes case studies for public entertainment and his own aggrandizement. Worse than Yalom, I see bloggers who apparently write about current or recent clients. I don't like the doctor-as-celebrity" racket. A provider's sole responsibility is toward his patients.

I'm afraid I can't agree with that statement. The practice of psychotherapy, or most any other profession, is improved by the dissemination of new ideas, new methods, and new modalities of treatment that have been studied (or anecdotally effective).

A provider has an obligation to his/her profession as well as the client/patient.

Does Yalom improve his field or practice? I don't know. Some parts of his work seem helpful and insightful - others not so much.

One thing I took away is how much of themselves therapists bring into the room, and how hard they work for us not to know. I appreciate his efforts and his honesty.

I can see what you're saying in defense of case studies. All I take from this specific book is Yalom's condescension and need to entertain. The book was on best seller lists when it was first published.

I'm glad I wasn't one of his lab rats. Yet had I been in the patients' position, I might have felt so subdued by his lordly personality I might have consented.

I can see how it might make some feel like a lab rat. Me? Nah.

He can be a real patootie in some of passages.

But, I don't expect therapists to be subservient to me.