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This book is crazy

Surely it counts

A very readable series of reflections from an experienced counselor. Written for aspiring counselors, each chapter is like a “tip” (“Let the patient matter to you,” “Admit your own errors”) but it’s more than advice: it’s listening to a sage, someone who has done a lot of inner work himself. Not sure if it’s the path for me to counsel others, but Yalom is sure inspiring to read

“Yes dear, a great many things have happened.”
“I wonder what,” said Celia.
“Oh, all the troubles of all people on the face of the earth,” said Dorothea, lifting her arms to the back of her head.
“Dear me, Dodo, are you going to have a scheme for them?” said Celia, a little uneasy at this Hamlet-like raving.

“There are episodes in most men’s lives in which their highest qualities can only cast a deterring shadow over the objects that fill their inward vision: Lydgate’s tender-heartedness was present just then only as a dread lest he should offend against it, not as an emotion that swayed him to tenderness.”
And then on the next page she pulls this off. So articulate about what goes on in the mind, damn.

“‘Why can’t you think it your duty to submit a little to what James wishes?’ said Celia, with a sense of stringency in her argument. [J is her husband.] ‘Because he only wishes what is for your own good. And of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.’”

Funny little moments reminiscent of P&P sprinkled throughout this novel.