Each session of psychotherapy is a kind of journey through unfamiliar territory, says Irvin Yalom. Moreover, the journey of two – the patient and the therapist. In the new autobiographical book, for the first time, he is alone with himself. What is revealed in the patient Irvine to the keen professional eye of Dr. Yalom? Does he manage to follow the recommendations he gives to others?
Each book by Irvin Yalom becomes a bestseller, and this is not surprising. He tells the life stories of his patients so captivatingly and analyzes them so deeply that these dynamic, sometimes detective stories reveal something unexpected in us too. Sometimes they hit really painful points – fear of death, loneliness, addiction, misunderstanding …
And at the age of 85, the famous existential psychologist and writer drew attention … to himself. He spoke about his discoveries very subtly and sincerely (“How I became myself”, Eksmo, 2018). Yalom recalls the sharpest, turning points of childhood and adolescence, painful and beautiful, touching and funny. He candidly talks about his relationship with his mother, which has been an “open wound” for him all his life. In all colors, he paints an adventurous acquaintance with his future wife. Analyzes the first psychotherapeutic experiences. In connection with the release of his memoirs, Irvin Yalom answered some of our questions.
Psychologies: Dr. Yalom, many admire your long marriage to Marilyn: you have been together for over 60 years. However, in the books you mentioned that all your children are divorced. Why doesn’t the parent example always work?
Irvin Yalom: This question still baffles me and my wife. Of course, when we got married, divorce was extremely rare. In fact, when I was young, I didn’t know anyone who was divorced. Today, divorce is unfortunately very common. On the other hand, three of the four children are now happily remarried and happily raising our eight grandchildren.
Yes, my relationship with my wife is the most important thing for me. We have always had fun together. In fact, our relationship lasts much longer than 60 years. It started when I was 15, and she is still – for more than 70 years – the most significant person in my life. For me, this is a real blessing. Fortunately, we are both alive, healthy and prosperous together.
You advised one of the patients to separate life and work. Have you personally followed this recommendation?
Yes, I try to make sure that work does not make up my whole life. But people in my field probably have the hardest time doing this, because our profession is too closely related to how a person lives. Therefore, I always made sure to pay attention not only to work, but also to leave free time for the family.
You once admitted that Rollo May changed your approach to therapy and life in general. His book Existential Psychology came out in the 1960s, but you’re still following that trend with patients. Why?
There are many patients for whom existential issues are extremely important: for example, people who are facing death and serious illness, or those who have lost someone very close. In these cases, I find that I can best help by openly dealing with fears of death, isolation, finding meaning in life. This is the formula that I apply to all patients. I always start with the problem that the person is currently facing, with what he personally needs now – this is much more important than the feeling that I have to follow some particular theory.
You recommend that patients record their dreams and analyze them during the sessions. Even How I Became Myself begins with your dream about teasing Alice, the girl who lived next door. Why are dreams important and why should they be analyzed?
Dreams often betray extremely important feelings and experiences of a person. The analysis of dreams leads to an understanding of the unconscious, something that we might never have been able to know about in any other way. Therefore, the most important thing is not just the interpretation of dreams, but the understanding that this opens the way to such deep thoughts and feelings of a person that otherwise simply would not have been opened.
In your memoirs, you were able to return to your roots, pay tribute to your parents, ask for forgiveness. Looks like it wasn’t easy…
When a person gets old, he almost always remembers a lot and talks about childhood and youth. This is a universal phenomenon, and I think about it much more now than when I was young. I know that in my soul now there is a lot of compassion and sympathy for my parents. I understand now how hard their life was, and I realize how much they did for me.
Excerpt from Irvin Yalom’s book “How I Became Myself” (Eksmo, 2018)
“I have a patient named Rose who of late has mostly spoken about her relationship with her teenage daughter, her only child. Rose was close to giving up, because her daughter’s enthusiasm was caused only by alcohol, sex and the company of other unlucky teenagers.
In therapy, Rose explored her own shortcomings as a mother and wife, her many infidelities, leaving her family for another man, and returning a few years after the romance fizzled out. Rose was a heavy smoker and developed devastating progressive emphysema; but in spite of this, in the past few years she has diligently tried to make amends for her wrongdoings and has rededicated herself to her daughter. However, nothing helped.
I strongly recommended family therapy, but my daughter refused. And now Rose reached a breaking point: every coughing fit and every visit to the pulmonologist reminded her that her days were numbered. She only wanted relief. “I want her to leave,” she told me.
Rose counted the days until her daughter graduated from high school and left home: for college, for work, anywhere. She no longer cared which path her daughter would choose. Again and again she whispered to herself and to me, “I want her to go away.”
In my practice, I do my best to bring families together, to heal the discord between brothers and sisters, children and parents. But working with Rose exhausted me, and I lost all hope of restoring peace in this family. During the last sessions, I tried to imagine for Rose her future if she broke off relations with her daughter. Wouldn’t she feel guilty and alone? But it was all in vain, and now time was running out: I knew that Rose did not have long to live.
Mother had good reason to feel relieved when I left home for good.
Having referred her daughter to one excellent therapist, I now dealt only with Rose herself and was completely on her side. More than once she told me: “Three months before she graduates from school. And then she won’t be. I want her to leave. I want her to leave.” I was hoping that Rose would wait until her wish came true.
That evening, as I was riding my bike, I kept repeating Rose’s words to myself, “I want her to go. I want her to leave…” And soon my thoughts switched to my mother, and I saw the world through her eyes – probably for the first time in my life. I imagined her thinking and saying similar things about me. And now, thinking about it, I could not remember any anguish on her part when I – finally and forever – left home for medical school in Boston.
I recalled the farewell scene: my mother was on the porch of the house, waving after my Chevy, which was packed with things under the very roof, and then, when it was out of sight, she went into the house. I imagined her closing the front door and taking a deep breath. Then, a couple of minutes later, she straightens her shoulders, smiles broadly, and invites her father to dance the triumphant “Hava Nagila” with her. Yes, my mother had good reason to feel relieved when I left home for good at twenty-two. I was a troublemaker. She never had a kind word for me, and I repaid her in kind.
As I bike down the long hillside, my thoughts drift back to the day I was fourteen and my father, then forty-six, woke up in the night with a sharp pain in his chest. In those days, doctors visited patients at home, and the mother immediately called the family doctor, Dr. Manchester. In the middle of the night, the three of us—father, mother, and I—were anxious and anxious for the arrival of the doctor. (My sister Jean, who was seven years older than me, had already left for college.)
Frustrated, my mother each time slipped into primitive thinking: if something bad happened, then someone must be to blame for it. And that someone was me. More than once or twice that night, when my father was writhing in pain, she shouted to me: “You, it was you who killed him!” She let me know that my disobedience, disrespect, endless violations of family rules – all this brought him.
That night I saw my father approach the threshold of death
… “You killed him, you killed him!” the shrill voice of the mother is still heard in the ears. I remember cringing, paralyzed with fear and rage. I wanted to shout back: “He’s not dead! Shut up fool!” She kept wiping the sweat from my father’s forehead and kissing his head, and I sat on the floor in the corner, huddled in a ball, until at last, about three in the morning, I heard Dr. Manchester’s big Buick rustling with autumn leaves on street. I rushed down, jumping three steps to open the door.
I liked Dr. Manchester very much, and the habitual appearance of his large, round, smiling face dispelled my panic. He patted my head, tousled my hair, calmed my mother, gave my father an injection (probably morphine), put a stethoscope to his chest and let me listen, and he said: “You see, son, it is ticking, strong and measured, like a clock . Nothing to worry about. He’ll be all right.”
That night I saw my father approach the threshold of death, I felt, as never before, the volcanic fury of my mother. And in self-defense, I decided to close myself from her forever. I had to get my feet out of this family. For the next two or three years, I hardly spoke to my mother – we lived like strangers under the same roof.
What I remember most vividly is the deep, all-encompassing relief of Dr. Manchester’s arrival. No one has ever given me such a gift. It was at that moment that I decided that I would be like him. I will become a doctor and be able to give others the comfort he gave me.”