2008-05-19 Fascinating stories of therapy where the psychiatrist is not God

Having read most of Yalom's other books, I expected this to be an insightful and instructive read. And so it proved. Yalom's ten 'cases' are recounted with gentleness, caring and consideration. The author does not cast himself in the role of the psychiatrist-God who has all the answers but as a person with likes and dislikes, with successes and failures, someone whose best intentions at times backfire and who can hit the spot with some of his patients through sheer accident. He treats his patients with consideration and respect without romanticizing the despair and anxiety he faces in his work. The book offers an interesting counter-part to Freud's classic case studies, which evoked the detective story genre as the psychoanalyst seeks to put together the clues offered him/her by the patient. Here too there is suspense. But the answers come from unexpected, sometimes accidental, quarters. Yet, each and every one of these cases provides a meaningful story with a beginning, a middle and, always, a satisfying end.