This is my favourite book by Dr. Irv Yalom. He is a wonderful writer and teller of stories, but there are many books I enjoy for those reasons, what distinguishes this author? I enjoy reading Dr. Yalom because of the philosophical elements he wraps around the real-life stories of his patients. He makes their problems not only easily understandable, but you sympathise, you identify with their angst.
Each chapter is a story of therapy that begins with his identification with his patient as being-all-of-us-in-it-together and ends with the solving of an existential problem and an easing, if not a cure, of the problem that led the person to Yalom in the first place. He doesn't promise cures, his role is to help the person see clearly their problem and how they can move forward from it. He listens and brings himself and his life to his patients and his books.
One of the reasons I like Yalom so much is that he makes sense. He addresses issues that we all will have to confront in our lives. As an existentialist he doesn't hark back to the dark meanderings of Freud or the archetypes of Jung. He deals with the here-and-now, the as-we-are. Contrasting with him is another modern therapist, Dr. M. Scott Peck, another story-telling author, but one who analyses people and their problems from a spiritual point of view, specifically from a strongly Christian viewpoint. He firmly believes in the existence of evil and the devil. His last book dealt with an exorcism he performed which has to be unique among practising psychiatrists.
I believe that from a viewpoint in the distant future, we will probably look back on today's religions as quaint and interesting myths and folklore, much as we do the various Egyptian, Roman and Greek cults, but the existential problems will still be with us in the same ways as they are today. Birth, death, love, children, friendship, hatred, disease and lack of resources will always be sources of problems. The insights gained from reading Yalom's talk solutions to his patients' problems are equally timeless and universal and that's why I like reading his books so much.