A twice told tale Yalom

I was surprised to read that too.....

Well, I can see that you wouldn't like him. You probably wouldn't like my therapist either. Not liking his personality is fine.

I'm being driven crazy by the people who are saying he must be a bad therapist or his therapy is dangerous. Dangerous?! Really??

Does stopdog like any therapist?

There have been a couple of them that I am more neutral about than dead flat disliking.

The book where he tells the story about all his negative feelings towards his fat client turned me off greatly. I agree with this assessment.

I’m not sure why this seems to have turned into a “bashing” Yalom thread.



My T1 with all the negative feelings he shared about me was not therapeutic. And was a turn off and harmful

(((((Fuzzybear)))))



Fuzzy, I’m very sorry that happened to you. You did not deserve to have such a hurtful, unprofessional person in your life.



(((((Fuzzybear)))))

Stopdog pretty well reflected my reaction to the books. He may very well be a wonderful T in real life, but that's not the persona I found he portrayed in his writing. I will give him credit for astuteness when it comes to the techniques of conducting group therapy, and his text on that subject was quite good. But his personality as he shows himself in his other writings struck me as self-aggrandizing and controlling.

I don't think holding a different opinion of a book constitutes "bashing."

I think he showed great courage in being that honest. And, in any case, the story is about his personal growth. The fact is, a lot of people, even therapists, think that without having the courage to admit it.

I was responding only to the OP's question which was related to the twice told story book. I did not like that particular book. I liked the other books I've read and I also liked that fat lady story because it sounded honest to me.

We can imagine that we ourselves are so nonjudgemental to everyone but I doubt that's truly the case - everyone has their prejudices and most people just try to hide them, perhaps even from themselves. I think it is part of the therapists job to work on his/her prejudices to get over them but to assume that there should never be none in the beginning would be assuming that therapists are not human beings.

he's a creepy misogynist so of course he's super popular.

I was very into existentialism when I was young and read a fair amount of existential therapy stuff also back then. I liked Yalom much better at the time, it was long before I experienced therapy or knew very much about it in general. These days I would not find his writings appealing and he definitely does not strike me as a person I would want to interact with, let alone have as a T. I easily understand why many people like him though, just not my style now that I know therapy and I've also kinda grown out of existentialism quite a bit - maybe just because I explored it to death in my youth (pun intended). Yalom is just not sympathetic to me at all at this point.

I haven't read the book in question but have watched a bunch of his interviews, and read some of the Executioner book. Dont want to pile on, but Yalom acts like the world would collapse without therapists generally, and without him specifically, which I find interesting, since therapists don't really do anything.

I've enjoyed his books and think he's an intelligent guy, but there's no way I'd want him as a therapist. I found he always took too much credit for changes that occurred within a client and discredited cultural outlooks that were different to his own.

Therapists are not authority figures, in my view, and are no more enlightened them I am. I don't think Yalom would say the same.

My own therapist told me he thought therapists were authority figures. He didn't seem to believe me when I told him he was more like a passenger in the side car next to a motorcycle. Someone who can point out things on the road, and have a good view of things I can't always see, but by no means the driver.