Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

A Psychiatrist’s Well Lived Life Irvin D. Yalom. “Becoming Myself. A Psychiatrist’s Memoir.” New York: Basic Books, 2017. I like books written by mental health clinicians who have lived a full life, and use their wealth of experience to tell us informative stories. Yalom tells stories, shares the importance of his dreams and those of his patients, his ways of doing therapy and his journey from 1930’s Washington D.C. to present day Palo Alto – along with his side trips around the world, not to mention all the remarkable people he met. At 85 years of age, Yalom still sees patients, consults, writes --- and has much to say in this wonderful memoir. He is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University in Palo, Alto California. He has authored many books including: The Schopenhauer Cure, The Gift of Therapy, Concise Guide to Group Psychotherapy, Lying on the Couch, Momma and the Meaning of Life, and Existential Therapy. My favorite part of his memoir is when he discusses his ideas about his book Existential Therapy – a book I treasure. Before reading Yalom’s Existential Therapy book I found readings on existential philosophy filled with barbed wire prose. But not Yalom --- he steeped himself in the writings of Rollo May, among other existential writers --- and even entered therapy with May. Yalom writes: “I gradually drifted away from my original affiliation with medical science and began grounding myself in the humanities…I embraced Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer, and Epicurus…Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Beckett, Kundera…” For example, Yalom focused on death anxiety, and started a group for females with breast cancer – to confront his own fears and help others. Yalom writes about one of his patients who said: “What a pity I had to wait until now, until my body was riddled with cancer, to learn to how to live.” Yalom says the above phrase took up permanent residence in his mind and helped shape his practice of existential therapy. Yalom writes: “though the reality of death may destroy us, the idea of death may save us. It brings home the realization that since we have only one chance at life, we should live it fully and end it with the fewest of regrets possible.” Yalom divided his book on existential therapy in four sections: the ultimate concerns: death, freedom, isolation and meaning. He confronts our anxieties about death --- drawing on the works of philosophers and writers, and his work with dying patients. He takes up freedom as the ultimate concern of many existential thinkers---a freedom that demands we are the authors of our own lives and must take responsibility for our actions. For Yalom, isolation is not interpersonal isolation but the idea that we are each thrown alone into the world and depart alone. He discusses isolation by focusing on the therapist-patient relationship --- examines our wishes to fuse with another and our fear of individuation. His 4th concern, meaning, touches on such questions as “What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What sense does life have?

Beautiful, thoughtful writing, fascinating life, lots of cool insights. I have a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley (1967) and I appreciate Dr. Yalom's study of and appreciation for the cool dudes of philosophy. I love all Dr. Yalom's books. Reading his memoir, I was able to revisit some of my favorite old haunts because Yalom lives in Palo Alto and I used to live in Redwood City and ride my bike around the Stanford campus. The Stanford University Bookstore was a favorite stop because it has a great selection of books by its wonderful faculty. I used to ride to the art cinema in Palo Alto and get an ice cream cone so I have fond memories of that little village where he lives. I also lived in Hawaii for a couple of years and in Greece for a year as did Dr. Yalom. Even though I never met Dr. Yalom, he covers the same zeitgeist as experienced by my generation, with better writing and greater depth of understanding than most of us could produce. We have in Dr. Yalom's memoir a great documentation of our shared history, humanity and few regrets.

Buen libro, me encanta el autor. El libro usado que pedí decía “como nuevo” pero no está en tan buen estado.

I was introduced to Yalom's work in a graduate-level Existential Psych course. He has since become one of my favorite authors, and this book only reaffirms my love for his literary style. His warmth and caring nature leap off the pages! Speaking as a person born and raised in the world of psychology, Becoming Myself is relatable, entertaining, and remarkably authentic. I continually find myself taking Yalom's thoughts and applying them to my own practice. Reading his reflections on his life also added considerable depth to my understanding of his other works (If you haven't read Love's Executioner or The Gift of Therapy, you should definitely go get them too). A brilliant, personal work. Essential reading for anyone looking to live life to the fullest.

Psychotherapy is a delicate and an ever-changing environment. To understand it, let alone explain it, is a task not many are prepared to master. Dr. Yalom is amongst the greatest of thinkers, writers and teachers in the field of psychotherapy. In particular, his Memoir is another brick laid to the foundation of what every aspiring therapist needs to read. Becoming Myself is a masterpiece in self-reflection: a page-by-page journey in understanding regret, love, anxiety, loyalty, perseverance, but most of all…honesty. This book, like all of Yalom’s texts, is unequivocally a true gift to therapy. As of this review, I have but a few chapters left unattended. I savor these last pages, as this book may be Yalom’s last…and so I “ration it and fight the urge to devour it all at once” (Becoming Myself, Ch.11). A must read for every generation and a book so inspiring it will never collect dust!

This book was so validating to me about my struggles with getting older and wanting to work indefinitely. I know now that I can and I can still help people. Beautifully written.

I'm so impressed with and cannot stop talking about the author’s latest work, which has opened up new vistas for me both in my work as a therapist and as a person. Not taking into consideration his unique writing ability, his stellar educational credentials and his high level of professional experience, I see some parallels in our two lives. Although I had wanted to go to med school and I had wanted to become a writer, after many years of struggle in various sales and marketing endeavors, I finally and belatedly got into the psychotherapy field in the year 2001, when I became 60. I have been a practicing clinician since that time. This is an amazing book and has provided me with tremendous insight and fleshed out my place on the Great Mandalla of therapy.

Good - and Yalom is always worth reading. He comes across as a caring and thoughtful healer and his writing is top-notch - both his fiction and his non-fiction. But this book gives me pause as I am confronted with a significant case of willful blindness and intellectual dishonesty. These are serious charges and I do not make them lightly. In his many books, Yalom comes across as a fan of Freud and his pioneering work. I share this respect for Freud, while I am now a dedicated student of Carl Jung and his writing. I consider that both were geniuses, but Jung is in a special category for me. He is one of the greatest thinkers of the past few hundred years. But reasonable people can disagree. Yalom rarely mentions Jung in his books and I have had no problem with that - to each his own. One of Yalom's most impressive novels is the speculative fiction, "When Nietzsche Wept". Yalom is clearly a passionate student of Nietzsche's ideas and writings, and as a student of Jung I can only agree that Nietzsche was a towering figure in philosophy. Yalom discusses Nietzsche a great deal in this memoir and clearly he was influenced a great deal by Nietzsche, as was Jung. Good so far. But then Yalom puts his foot into it. Yalom seems to say that he was the first to recognize how much Nietzsche could contribute to psychiatry. Yalom is eager to toot his own horn as the first to recognize Nietzsche's importance to human psychology. That was when I got upset. Jung clearly recognized the relevance of Nietzsche to the study of the human psyche. I have at home the two volume edition of: "Psychological analysis of Nietzche's Zarathustra: Notes on the seminar given by Prof. Dr. C.G. Jung, Zurich, Winter 1935". This represents over 1500 pages of a serious discussion of Nietzsche and the human psyche. And this doesn't even warrant a mention by Yalom? Not a word? From a seminar in 1935? Yalom would have been four years old. In this book, Yalom writes: "Why Nietzsche? Though he had lived during the era when Freud brought psychotherapy into existence, he had never been considered relevant to psychiatry. Yet many of Nietzsche’s pronouncements, sprinkled throughout his work and written before the dawn of psychotherapy, are highly germane to the education of therapists." Yalom, Irvin D.. Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (p. 235). Basic Books. Kindle Edition. Yalom goes on to quote Nietszche: “Physician help thyself; thus you help your patients too. Let this be his best help—that he, the patient, may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself.”" To repeat - Yalom writes: "he (Nietsszche) had never been considered relevant to psychiatry" I cannot believe that Yalom is so intent on his legacy, that he denies any credit to Jung for recognizing Nietzsche's genius and his contributions to the understanding of our psychology. Yalom is extremely well-read and very intelligent. Jung is not some obscure writer. This is not a Freud Jung animosity thing for me. Yalom took Nietzsche very seriously and he is to be commended for that. I have a great deal of respect for Freud and Jung shared that respect and often spoke well of his former teacher - see CW 7. Yalom seems to have some issue with Jung or his own self-importance. Perhaps he should consider seeing someone about that. Apart from this enormous problem with the book, I can recommend it to fans of Yalom. I continue to be a fan of the man and his writing, but I remain disappointed in his treatment of Jung. A well-read and popular writer such as Yalom owes his readers more honesty.