Existential PsychotherapyThe definitive account of existential psychotherapy. Existential therapy is practiced throughout the world. But until now, it has lacked a coherent structure. In Existential Psychotherapy, Irvin Yalom finds the essence of existential psychotherapy, synthesizing its historical background, core tenets, and usefulness to the practice. Organized around what Yalom identifies as the four "ultimate concerns of life" -- death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness -- the book takes up the meaning of each existential concern and the type of conflict that springs from our confrontation with each. He shows how these concerns are manifested in personality and psychopathology, and how treatment can be helped by our knowledge of them. Drawing from clinical experience, empirical research, philosophy, and great literature, Yalom provides an intellectual home base for those psychotherapists who have sensed the incompatibility of orthodox theories with their own clinical experience, and opens new doors for empirical research. The fundamental concerns of therapy and the central issues of human existence are woven together here as never before, with intellectual and clinical results that will surprise and enlighten all readers. |
Contents
Death | 27 |
The Concept of Death in Children | 75 |
Death and Psychopathology | 110 |
Copyright | |
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approach asked avoid awareness basic become behavior believe Buber cancer castration anxiety chapter character structure child cited clinical clinician concept concerns confrontation conscious consider dead death anxiety decision defenses denial denial of death depression described discuss dream dying dynamic encounter example existence existential isolation existential therapy experience face fact father fear of death feel felt field-dependent Frankl freedom Freud Fromm Gestalt Therapy goal guilt Heidegger help the patient human Ibid important individual insight interpersonal Jamelia Journal learned live locus of control Logotherapy loneliness major meaning meaninglessness mode mother neurosis neurotic never one's oneself Otto Rank parents Perls problem psychiatric Psychiatry Psychoanalysis Psychology psychopathology psychotherapy question Rank relate relationship responsibility responsibility assumption role schizophrenic sense session sexual situation social sponsibility theory thera therapeutic therapist therapy group thing thought tient tion ultimate rescuer unconscious Viktor Frankl wish York