Jeffrey Berman’s book Irvin D. Yalom and the Literature of Psychotherapy: Writing the Talking Cure explores Yalom’s profound contribution to psychotherapy and literature.

Irvin D. Yalom, a distinguished psychiatrist and psychotherapist, is the most widely known author of psychotherapy stories in the United States. His first book of short stories of this kind, Love’s Executioner, became an instant bestseller, and his first novel, When Nietzsche Wept, continues to enjoy critical acclaim and great commercial success. Yalom created the genre of “psychotherapy literature,” in which the therapist learns as much, if not more, than the patient; in which therapy never proceeds as expected; and where the therapist’s seemingly unsuccessful approach ultimately proves successful.

The book examines in detail, for the first time, all of Yalom’s important books. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the author comments on Yalom’s profound contribution to psychotherapy and literature and highlights the ideas that recur in his books and unify them: the importance of the therapeutic relationship, the therapist’s transparency, the “here and now” approach, the dominance of death anxiety, mutual therapy, and the theme of the traumatized therapist. Throughout the book, Berman discusses what Yalom can teach therapists in particular and the general (yet special) reader in general.

BIO

JEFFREY BERMAN is a professor of English at the University of Albany, State University of New York. He is also the author of Writing Widowhood: The Landscapes of Bereavement, Death in the Classroom: Writing about Love and Loss, and Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning, all published by SUNY Press.