Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

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?

Beautiful, thoughtful writing, fascinating life, lots of cool insights. I have a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley (1967) and I appreciate Dr. Yalom's study of and appreciation for the cool dudes of philosophy. I love all Dr. Yalom's books. Reading his memoir, I was able to revisit some of my favorite old haunts because Yalom lives in Palo Alto and I used to live in Redwood City and ride my bike around the Stanford campus. The Stanford University Bookstore was a favorite stop because it has a great selection of books by its wonderful faculty. I used to ride to the art cinema in Palo Alto and get an ice cream cone so I have fond memories of that little village where he lives. I also lived in Hawaii for a couple of years and in Greece for a year as did Dr. Yalom. Even though I never met Dr. Yalom, he covers the same zeitgeist as experienced by my generation, with better writing and greater depth of understanding than most of us could produce. We have in Dr. Yalom's memoir a great documentation of our shared history, humanity and few regrets.

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.

Becoming Myself is another effective book by Dr. Irvin Yalom. This is the most autobiographical of his books though many of his non-fiction works represent his values, his approach and how he has created a coherent if sometimes iconoclastic framework for psychotherapy. Many things stand out: how he responded as a child to the religion of his family of origin, how he did not align with any number of popular theories of human development and therapeutic schools of thoughts, and his interest in group dynamics.In several of his books, Yalom writes about his non-religious stance to life. At the same time, he respects the way religious beliefs can be helpful to some who find solace and strength in such beliefs. As a minister, I respect his view. He approaches many of existential questions that religious asks but from a different worldview. If you are interested in questions about purpose and meaning in life Yalom, through this book Becoming Myself, is a reliable and engaging conversation partner.He writes clearly. He writes respectfully of others (his relationship with Rollo May is described warmly). He is a careful, thoughtful and deep thinker.