Writing the Talking Cure: Irvin D. Yalom and the Literature of Psychotherapy

338 Pages·2019·1.57 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Berman

Writing the Talking Cure
Also by Jeffrey Berman
Joseph Conrad: Writing as Rescue
The Talking Cure: Literary Representations of Psychoanalysis
Narcissism and the Novel
Diaries to an English Professor: Pain and Growth in the Classroom
Surviving Literary Suicide
Risky Writing: Self-Disclosure and Self-Transformation in the Classroom
Empathic Teaching: Education for Life
Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning
Cutting and the Pedagogy of Self-Disclosure (with Patricia Hatch Wallace)
Death in the Classroom: Writing about Love and Loss
Companionship in Grief: Love and Loss in the Memoirs of C. S. Lewis,
John Bayley, Donald Hall, Joan Didion, and Calvin Trillin
Death Education in the Writing Classroom
Dying in Character: Memoirs on the End of Life
Confidentiality and Its Discontents: Dilemmas of Privacy in Psychotherapy
(with Paul W. Mosher)
Writing Widowhood: The Landscapes of Bereavement
Writing the Talking Cure
Irvin D. Yalom and the
Literature of Psychotherapy
Jeffrey Berman
Cover photograph: Michael Zagaris.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
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Printed in the United States of America
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For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Berman, Jeffrey, 1945– author.
Title: Writing the talking cure : Irvin D. Yalom and the literature of psychotherapy /
Jeffrey Berman.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, 2019. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018021839 | ISBN 9781438473871 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781438473888 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438473895 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Yalom, Irvin D., 1931– | Psychotherapy.
Classification: LCC RC480 .B377 2019 | DDC 616.89/14—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021839
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the future—our beloved grandchildren:
Audrey, Max, Nate, Skyler, Sloane, and Talia.
And to Julie, the sparkling jules of my life.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Existence Pain xi
1. The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy : The Art of
Self-Disclosure 1
2. Every Day Gets a Little Closer : A Dual Perspective of Therapy 15
3. Existential Psychotherapy : Living with Death Anxiety 27
4. Inpatient Group Psychotherapy : Educating Observers
and the Observed 43
5. Love’s Executioner : Living with Existence Pain 49
6. When Nietzsche Wept : Gratitude and Its Discontents 79
7. Lying on the Couch : The Threat of Sexual Boundary
Violations 117
8. Momma and the Meaning of Life : The “Smoldering Inner
Compost Heap” of Creativity 143
9. The Gift of Therapy : The Hazards and Privileges of
Being a Therapist 163
viii Contents
10. The Schopenhauer Cure : Searching for an Antidote 169
11. Staring at the Sun : Novel Healing 207
12. The Spinoza Problem : “A Sedative for My Passions” 225
13. Creatures of a Day : Anticipating Endings 267
Conclusion : Yalom’s Cure and Becoming Myself 285
Works Cited 297
Index 307
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to Irvin Yalom for taking the time to read and com-
ment on the manuscript for Writing the Talking Cure before I submitted it
for publication. He pointed out factual errors, helped me to make connec-
tions I hadn’t seen, and allowed me to include his comments in my study.
Irv and Marilyn Yalom invited my wife, Julie, and me to dinner in the
spring of 2017 when I was doing research at the Yalom Archives at Stanford
University. It was a great pleasure meeting the Yaloms, who could not have
been more gracious. Reading Irv Yalom’s responses to my manuscript, I had
the same feeling that I do when I read his books: he is one of the people,
as Henry James observed in “The Art of Fiction,” “on whom nothing is
lost.” I have long known, like countless others, that reading and writing are
therapeutic; authoring a book on Irvin Yalom has been the least expensive
and most effective psychotherapy in my life.
I am grateful to the staff at Stanford University’s Department of Spe-
cial Collections, who went out of their way to help me during my research
at the Yalom Archives, which contain hundreds of letters testifying to the
power of his writings. A typical comment, written by a woman grieving
the recent death of her father: “I want to thank you for all of your gener-
ous literature. You have helped me to embrace death and understand death
anxiety and the importance of living life to its fullest—and most important,
to share the expression of love with those [with] whom we share common
paths. Had I not drowned myself in your writing, I do not think I would
be coping as well as I am. Thank you, thank you with all of my heart.”
One could write an entire chapter on Yalom’s correspondence, especially his
influence on mental health professionals, as can be seen in a 2004 letter
from an Australian therapist: “You have been the most influential therapist
in my training and I would hate to think that you weren’t around anymore
to share your wisdom and humour.”
ix