Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir Paperback – May 28, 2019

A Psychiatrist’s Well Lived LifeIrvin D. Yalom. “Becoming Myself. A Psychiatrist’s Memoir.” New York: Basic Books, 2017.I like books written by mental health clinicians who have lived a full life, and use their wealth of experience to tell us informative stories. Yalom tells stories, shares the importance of his dreams and those of his patients, his ways of doing therapy and his journey from 1930’s Washington D.C. to present day Palo Alto – along with his side trips around the world, not to mention all the remarkable people he met.At 85 years of age, Yalom still sees patients, consults, writes --- and has much to say in this wonderful memoir.He is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University in Palo, Alto California. He has authored many books including: The Schopenhauer Cure, The Gift of Therapy, Concise Guide to Group Psychotherapy, Lying on the Couch, Momma and the Meaning of Life, and Existential Therapy.My favorite part of his memoir is when he discusses his ideas about his book Existential Therapy – a book I treasure. Before reading Yalom’s Existential Therapy book I found readings on existential philosophy filled with barbed wire prose.But not Yalom --- he steeped himself in the writings of Rollo May, among other existential writers --- and even entered therapy with May. Yalom writes: “I gradually drifted away from my original affiliation with medical science and began grounding myself in the humanities…I embraced Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer, and Epicurus…Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Beckett, Kundera…”For example, Yalom focused on death anxiety, and started a group for females with breast cancer – to confront his own fears and help others. Yalom writes about one of his patients who said: “What a pity I had to wait until now, until my body was riddled with cancer, to learn to how to live.”Yalom says the above phrase took up permanent residence in his mind and helped shape his practice of existential therapy. Yalom writes: “though the reality of death may destroy us, the idea of death may save us. It brings home the realization that since we have only one chance at life, we should live it fully and end it with the fewest of regrets possible.”Yalom divided his book on existential therapy in four sections: the ultimate concerns: death, freedom, isolation and meaning. He confronts our anxieties about death --- drawing on the works of philosophers and writers, and his work with dying patients. He takes up freedom as the ultimate concern of many existential thinkers---a freedom that demands we are the authors of our own lives and must take responsibility for our actions. For Yalom, isolation is not interpersonal isolation but the idea that we are each thrown alone into the world and depart alone. He discusses isolation by focusing on the therapist-patient relationship --- examines our wishes to fuse with another and our fear of individuation. His 4th concern, meaning, touches on such questions as “What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What sense does life have?

The title of this remarkable memoir could well have been "Revealing Myself." Dr. Yalom does just that with refreshing candor throughout this engrossing story of his life.The story of his relationship with, and feelings for, his parents are particularly telling. His literary and intellectual interests were not ones shared by his immigrant mother and father. Indeed, these interests drew him away from them. But his parents still were always there to help him advance his career by financing his education, giving him the down payment for the purchase of his current home, and loving him in their own way. Given the historically difficult relationship the author had with his parents, and his mother in particular, it is noteworthy that the author dedicates the book to their memory, as well as to the memory of his sister, about whom we learn little in the book. To me, it shows that Dr. Yalom has come to understand and appreciate that his parents were always supportive of him.I most admired the author's willingness to face the fear of death with his patients, and with himself. My experience is that this is a subject generally avoided by many psychiatrists. There seems indeed to be a conspiracy of silence between most therapists and their patients on this critical subject. But not with Yalom! He faces the issue of death head on, and has done so successfully for decades.I am an artist who paints objects not visible to the naked eye, such as those things one sees in a drop of pond water through a microscope. Likewise, Yalom, with his own intellectual microscope, sees so much of the internal life of a patient that others, including the patient himself/herself, simply does not see. As such, I see Dr. Yalom as an artist, but simply operating in a different realm from me.

On a friend’s recommendation, I read Yalom’s memoir, which began as memoir then lapsed into autobiography. Yalom enjoyed an interesting life. Though the autobiographical parts were less satisfying, I read the entire book avidly and was sad at the end—sad the book was over and sad for the author. All his life, he pursued his interests and as an adult spent a great deal of time in therapy, pursuing honesty and meaning. Yet, as an existentialist, he eschewed faith. Written at age eighty-five, his memoir seemed colored not so much by becoming himself but by his professional accomplishments and fear of death, fear of retirement, fear of true reflection. Fear of the very thing he’d searched for all his life.

I have always been a fan of Dr. Yalom. When in my 40s, working as an ethics attorney, and in therapy myself I decided to study to be a therapist the first class I took and book I was required to use was his on the practice of such therapy. I left the study with all but thesis and orals, but I continued to read Dr. Yalom’s books. What always surprises me and maybe is even oddly gratifying is how much I appreciate him despite our different conclusions about God. He seems to respect the believer though he is not one. That is radically different from one’s usual experience. Still I wish I could ask him if he has ever considered it a huge blind spot in his otherwise expansive life dealing with existential issues.But I loved reading about his journey. And his honesty. Thanks. I am now going in search of the doc Yalom’s Cure.