Existential Psychotherapy, Hardcover/Irvin D. Yalom

The definitive account of existential psychotherapy. Existential therapy is practiced throughout the world. But until now, it has lacked a coherent structure. In Existential Psychotherapy , Irvin Yalom finds the essence of existential psychotherapy, synthesizing its historical background, core tenets, and usefulness to the practice. Organized around what Yalom identifies as the four "ultimate concerns of life"-death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness-the book takes up the meaning of each existential concern and the type of conflict that springs from our confrontation with each. He shows how these concerns are manifested in personality and psychopathology, and how treatment can be helped by our knowledge of them. Drawing from clinical experience, empirical research, philosophy, and great literature, Yalom provides an intellectual home base for those psychotherapists who have sensed the incompatibility of orthodox theories with their own clinical experience, and opens new doors for empirical research. The fundamental concerns of therapy and the central issues of human existence are woven together here as never before, with intellectual and clinical results that will surprise and enlighten all readers. About the Author: Irvin D. Yalom, M.D. , is professor emeritus of psychiatry at Stanford University and a psychiatrist in San Francisco. He was the recipient of the 1974 Edward Strecker Award and the 1979 Foundation's Fund Prize in Psychiatry. He is the author of The Gift of Therapy , Love's Executioner , When Nietzsche Wept , and the classic textbook The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy .