Winnicott also cites the hostile lullabies mothers sing to babies, who fortunately do not understand the words. Accurate empathy is an essential trait not only for therapists but for patients, and we must help patients develop empathy for others. A book aimed at enriching the therapeutic process for a new generation of patients and counsellors, Yalom’s Gift of Therapy is an entertaining, informative, and insightful read for anyone with an interest in the subject. If the future of psychotherapy lies in psychopharmaceuticals and the short-term therapies stipulated by HMOs, argues Yalom, then the profession is in trouble. Consequently, it’s no wonder that the book consists of 85 chapters, most of them no longer than two or three pages, and each one focusing on an important aspect of Yalom’s works and beliefs.

The findings affirm the presence of the ‘wounded healer’ archetypes in therapists’ dreams about their patients. However, the suggestions made by each contributor should in no way be interpreted as the only way such problems can be approached and resolved.Rather than attempt to develop existential psychotherapy curriculums, I believe it is preferable to supplement the education of all well-trained dynamic therapists by increasing their sensibility to existential issues.

One of our chief modes of death-denial is a belief in personal specialness, a conviction that we are exempt from biological necessity and that life will not deal with us in the same harsh way it deals with everyone else. of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients by Irvin D. For example: Rockabye, Baby, on the treetop, When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And down will come baby, cradle and all.Process” refers to an entirely different and enormously important dimension: the interpersonal relationship between the patient and therapist. The reason is that I’ve never considered existential psychotherapy to be a discrete free-standing ideological school. However, when Yalom deals with a single patient, he operates within an existential frame of reference, which is firmly rooted within the conviction that patients fall into despair due to a confrontation with the “harsh facts of human condition – the ‘givens’ of existence. The existential psychotherapy approach posits that the inner conflict bedeviling us issues not only from our struggle with suppressed instinctual strivings or internalized significant adults or shards of forgotten traumatic memories, but also f rom our confrontation with the “givens” of existence. This is another one of those phrases that have taken up lodging in my mind and that I often make use of in my clinical work.

How wonderful, that we can still behave like humans in a field where that is what is so often needed. The first question was addressed using categorical content analysis of a) themes common to different dreams and b) pre-determined themes for all dreams. Beginning therapists must learn that there are times to sit in silence, sometimes in silent communion, sometimes simply while waiting for patients' thoughts to appear in a form that they may be expressed.Friendship between therapist and patients is a necessary condition in the process of therapy - necessary, but not, however, sufficient. When I see patients in group therapy I work from an interpersonal frame of referenceand I make the assumption that patients fall into despair because of their inability to develop and sustain gratifying interpersonal relationships.

Loved the inclusion of the Harry Stack Sullivan quote describing therapy as "a discussion of two people, one of them more anxious than the other. He is well-read and, even in the very short chapters that characterize this book (often two pages or less), Yalom may refer to Schopenhauer, Hesse, and Rilke, the way that I refer to my best friends and my children. We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life. Content is just what the word says it is: “the precise words spoken, the substantive issues addressed.My fourth Yalom book, this text was the perfect supplement to my Masters course in Psychology (actually sometimes the uni course felt like a supplement to the book! From the outset, Yalom highlights the reality of life that he sees: “it is difficult to deny the inbuilt despair in the life of every self-conscious individual.