Product Title:
The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter into a New Generation of Therapists & Their Patients
Description:
Anyone interested in psychotherapy or personal growth will rejoice at the release of The Gift of Therapy, a masterwork by one of today’s psychological ablest thinkers. From his thirty-five years as a practicing psychiatrist & gives as an award-winning author, Irvin D. Yalom his unique wisdom in The Gift of Therapy. This remarkable guidebook for successful therapy is, as Yalom remarks, “an idiosyncratic blend of ideas & techniques I have found useful in my work. These ideas are so personal, opinionated, occasionally original unlikely that the reader encounters elsewhere is. I chose the eighty-five categories in this volume randomly guided by my passion for the task is never a particular order or system. “
Suddenly, surprisingly deep & irresistibly practical, Yalom insights contribute into the therapeutic process a new generation of patients & therapists. Speaking directly into the actual generation of counselors, The Gift of Therapy lays simple suggestions, the combination of personal experience with professional objectivity. This is a book that you remember why you entered the field in the first place. With tips on avoiding diagnosis (except for insurance), in order, if personal information is disclosed, & why it is important into leave time between patient appointments, the recommendations into therapists, but it can be useful for patients who want into know what into expect from their consultants. Some references into the DSM-IV can be a small more than the layman’s head, but in general the writing is clear & understandable for lay people & professionals.
Each chapter is only a few pages long, a nice format for busy people whose time is reading in snippets. A single topic is treated in each chapter, & author Irvin Yalom does never waste time in more into the point. Many of the pieces revolve around balancing the “magic, mystery & authority” into exempt the work your clients of their dependency come from you.
when provided into an occasional hug, the perfect time for deeper question, Yalom experienced observations will help you into provide more professional effectiveness while avoiding some of the most obvious traps in this HMO-directed age of mental health care. – Jill Lightner
Twenty years ago, when I read Irvin Yalom Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, I knew I wanted to be a psychotherapist. These 20 years later, reading The Gift of Therapy, I will remember that I made a good choice.
Irv Yalom’s “open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients speaks three essential aspects of mine: the psychotherapist, the man and the writer.
As a psychotherapist I am for thinking outside traditional boxes validated and challenged to keep learning with every client I see. Yalom offers everything suggested by the specific questions that customers to the wisdom of asking his experience as “Therapy should not be driven to be ground, but relationship-driven” and “if the physicality of death destroys us, may the thought of death to save us is. “
man that I remember, there is rarely, if ever — — only one reasonable explanation, as we become who we are, am. And I am enlightened by Yalom’s memory of Paul Tilich the list of four “ultimate concerns” — death, isolation, and sense of freedom.
As a writer I am quite entertained by how Yalom puts together a sentence. For example, speaks of the importance of dream interpretation in therapy, he writes, “plunder and loot the dream, it seems to take what is valuable and discard the shell does not have the federal government.”
Especially as I close my now well worn, underlined and dog-eared copy of the new book by Irv Yalom’s, I am of the man and the psychotherapist who was inspired, is and remains a hero of mine. (I suspect, Irv would consider that same literary transmission.)
Bottom Line: great book for therapists and non therapists.
Rating: 5.5
The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom
, MD
by Suzanne M. Retzinger, Ph. D.
waiting for my brother to his three-hour dialysis completely revised, I was surfing the bookcase for the waiting time for made available. I was in Love’s Executioner and read it for the first time I had read Yalom Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy text in grad school – like all the requirements. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to listen to – inspired, I had to read more and found The Gift of Therapy (2003, edition: Perennial, 263 pages 12 euros. 95).
Yalom is the first of many that I’ve read on the therapeutic relationship, not “talk” shows on the therapeutic relationship – but “it – dare one way for the bold, a genuine connection between the therapist and patient. My interest in his work lies in his openness about his own feelings and how he uses them therapeutically. Nothing, he says, “has priority over care and maintenance of my relationship with the patient … and how we regard one another.” Most patients come for therapy starved for intimacy, their conflicts in this particular area – and it is the therapeutic relationship, itself, creates that change.
For this reason, the “blank screen” model is far from what Yalom sees as effective patient-therapist relationship, therapists he sees a lack of transparency as counterproductive. Because of the alienated nature of many customers’ lives, the here and now space between therapist and patient, what is important. It is about the space that we create with our customers and how we use it, that the room – “the in-between.” Yalom spelled three levels of therapist transparency, can be productive or not, everyone asks, “this information is in the best interests of the client?”.
Standardization, he believes, makes treatment less effective, threatening therapist spontaneity. Therapy is a journey – and in view of the Yalom therapist and client are “followers”. Whatever relationship we build with our customers. Be going to “ready, where the patient goes” – The long brown path before me, when I select leader (Walt Whitman – Song of the Open Road).
The relationship is the most important thing – I know – I have heard this from the beginning: in the school, monitoring, testing programs, Yatta, Yatta, Yatta. But at the same time I hear “do not come too close,” or “nothing about itself” God forbid you touch a client “- a double message – the unspoken message: Do you close your nose, eyes, use a 10 -foot pole. In my first career – research – I learned to jump, with all I have – open my eyes, my ears and throw away any sense, the pole position. Yalom breathes life into treatment by visiting the intermediates, the emotions that arise in this area and discussion of this process with the patient.
Western culture is full of alienation, therapy is a process of intimacy for those who may choose to renew this path. It is a “rehearsal for life,” says Yalom. to affect and change analysis of sequences, microcosms of our patient’s life that are examined for lasting change must occur. Feelings, thoughts, words, together with their analysis are not taboo, they are the stuff of intimacy. We must not confuse sex with intimacy, “says Yalom. Sex is always inappropriate to the customer, is not intimacy. Yalom has taken
expresses its concern about the direction of the mental health field. With the growing alienation in our world, people are less and less important. In our profession, we see fewer meetings of HMO’s, drugs in place of human contact, focus on technology, fear of intimacy because of the actions provided. In this age of pharmaceuticals, HMOs and complaints, the relationship is lost? This book (and his others) is a wake up call, a reminder to us all – the experienced and the beginner, and – that we are in the business of healing relationships and not to shuffle them in bulk.
Since that first day at the dialysis center, where I found Love’s Executioner, I have much of what Yalom has written read. It is not only the brilliance of what he writes, draws me in, but the way he writes, that touched me. His books are “serious, on the ground, and pulse with levity and life.”
Yalom’s book “The Gift of Therapy is a gift to therapists past, present and future. As Yalom, we need to` show ‘and not say, “our customers the way to solidarity. My hope is that these and other works such as these are not lost in a world so desperate his need of humans.
Rating: 5.5
Psychiatry Residency is in a different way than in other medical disciplines is a challenge. Medical school prepares you for the medical aspects of psychiatry, particularly in the neurosciences and pharmacology. But for therapy, medical schools barely touch on it. Things that help in therapy, with himself, or at least in therapy, and looking for really good service. Good books to help. But taking these first couple of patients is alarming and the PGY-2 year is too stressful to spend many hours reading up on art therapy. Yalom’s “The Gift of Therapy” was given to me by one of my most important people during my PGY-2 years and was very helpful. I have another time to have read more of Yalom works and many of its therapeutic stories enjoyed group therapy as well as his primer, but where I was then, “The Gift of Therapy” was just what the doctor ordered. The key is extremely short chapters. It is a book by the bed (or can be filled in a white coat pocket that, when’s your style) and read a few pages at a time. Some chapters focus on NUTS-and-bolts issues of everyday life, but what is particularly helpful the chapters that give a taste of the process. Many of the chapters help the “it to enhance all grist for the mills’ idea that there are few real mistakes that almost everything you create in the therapy and data on how the patient reacts and relates. This is an important concept and for me makes some of the fear that a new therapist. It’s much better to prevent out-patient approach with enthusiasm as with fear, and without doubt, patients can feel this difference very well. I also greatly appreciate Yalom attitude does not have the respect of a particular model or modality of therapy, but the recognition that different situations require different approaches that the flexibility of the greatest tool for the therapist.
Nothing makes me more than hearing from analysts knock cognitive behavioral therapy or vice versa take, just one obvious example. Before my medicine days, I studied anthropology, and it was exactly this kind of bored me and disappointed. The majority of people did the energy in the “deconstruction” of the ideas of other people to contribute something positive and helpful. Yalom emphasizes that certain discrete symptoms are best treated with CBT type approaches, some questions call for an existential approach, sometimes analytical techniques are best, and so on. Especially in training, the focus should remain on the acquisition of as many tools as possible, flexible, and maintaining an open mind. He modeled the importance of focusing on constantly here and now and countertransference. This can rudiments, but early in training can not be overemphasized. Especially from a Western medical model tend to these basic concepts are not natural. So this book is just what you need as a PGY-2: good, light reading, which is also useful, informative and helps generate some confidence and enthusiasm towards outpatient work.
Rating: 5.5
Long after Dr. Yalom departed for the great practice of the therapist in the sky, this book is still considered to be a must for the beginner and experienced consultants, because to read the common sense and compassionate advice, it offers known. This is Dr. Yalom’s Magnum Opus.
I first met Dr. Yalom’s work when I took a required course in group therapy, and his text on the subject was the point of reference for the course. It was not long until I get a sense of awe in his wisdom, the likes of which only slightly compared typically reserved for a demigod. Yet Dr. Yalom, a wise man, is the “been there” and his writings reflect the wisdom of his years.
The Gift of Therapy is to renew your sense of passion for mental health. Dr. Yalom has to be a way, his readers an insight into the treatment process to be a doctor or therapist to a lookout point that will allow him or her to be grateful for all the good we do in the service of humanity.
There were times when reading this book if I had to sell it and ponder what I had just read, Dr. Yalom is an expression of deep, without pedantry, and the sublime, without silliness. After reading this book, I am literally in awe of this “giant” and I’m proud that we were both serving humanity in the same field.
Rating: 5.5
This is the latest book by Irvin Yalom, whose books I have been following over the years. From the first page of the introduction, Yalom’s writing is compelling and to the point. He said, turning 70 years old, which made him feel a need to “on” his knowledge and experience to pass on some of its younger generations of therapists and patients have. This is what he is trying to do in this comprehensive book, a book with tips on technique and long short on theory (such as Yalom puts it).
Each “tip” that Yalom has come from years of experience and in most cases it makes sense. Something that should be noted is that his book is not written, I think, for the non-psychologically trained reader. It is directed towards psychotherapists, they attempted to and in the direction of good decisions and good therapeutic work with clients / patients to control. Most of the tips may like common sense, appear to most psychologists / psychotherapists, but if you think a bit more about them, most of them are not used as often as they should be. Even apart from the obvious tips, Yalom offers a number of very innovative (and perhaps a few more times controversial) advice. These chapters are alone, in my opinion is worth the price of the book, because they make you sit down and think.
All in all a great reference book for psychotherapists who comes to life through a wonderful, clear writing, and many vivid clinical examples.
Rating: 5.5