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Existential Psychotherapy
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.89
EAN: 9780465021475
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0465021476
Label: Basic Books
Manufacturer: Basic Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 524
Publication Date: December 07, 1980
Publisher: Basic Books
Studio: Basic Books
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Editorial Review:
Existential therapy has been practiced and continues to be practiced in many forms and situations throughout the world. But until now, it has lacked a coherent structure, and analysis of its tenets, and an evaluation of its usefulness. Irvin Yalom, whose Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy has rendered such a service to that discipline since 1970, provides existential psychotherapy with a background, a synthesis, and a framework.Organized around what Yalom identifies as the four “ultimate concerns of life”—death, freedom, existential 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 has written a broad and comprehensive book. It will provide an intellectual home base for those psychotherapists who have sensed the incompatability of orthodox theories with their own clinical experience, and it 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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Essential Reading for Philosophers, Parents and Psychology Students
I first picked up this book for a university assignment on Irvin Yalom and was amazed that I had got through an undergrad degree in psychology without hearing about him. This book is so interesting and accessible and I immediately clicked with his ideas and approach. Yalom comes across as very knowledgeable, explaining and challenging theories of psychology and how they support or contrast to the existential approach. He offers much practical advice and food for thought. The book is very enlighting ... Read More
Rating: - A psychotherapy practice could be built on this book!
I have recommended this book to one client who found it extremely useful as a means of managing his fear of death. Yalom's idea that the fears associated with the existential concerns of isolation, freedom, death, and sense of purpose form part of our subconscious-conscious dynamics is brilliant and original. He makes the argument that the anxieties associated with these concerns form a very early part of our experience and that they're repressed when the newborn is taught that it is not OK to experience ... Read More
Rating:  - Not morbid in the least
Yalom points out that people often use one of two opposite methods for quelling death-anxiety: the "myth of specialness" in which a person places themselves outside of humanity so as not to die, and the myth of an ultimate rescuer, where a person clings to the idea of a savior to whom they can be subjugated. Both are dysfunctional. Other than saying that love ameliorates but does not eliminate death-anxiety, Yalom fails to offer a construct for balancing inward and outward-directed methods of dealing with ... Read More
Rating: - From Literature to Science
My approach to Yalom came from literature. This is an interesting point of view of what our lives are supposed to be.
Rating: - Most Illuminating Psych Book I've Read
As a psychiatrist, I have yet to read a more illuminating book on how mental illnesses can develop, and how to help patients' to become free of them.
Existential Psychotherapy presents a theory of the existential forces that drive all human beings--knowledge of death, of our aloneness in the world, and of "meaninglessness" (the utter inconsequence of our one life in the entirety of the universe). It shows how these forces are powerful influences in shaping human mental health and illness.
Other ... Read More
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