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Irvin Yalom
Irvin Yalom is one of the leading individuals in the realm of group therapy. His books have been extensively used in graduate level training courses across America. He has written several books about the therapeutic process including Momma and the Meaning of Life, Lying on the Couch and Love's Executioner.
NAJP: What aspects of pathology are you most concerned about in your latest book, The Schopenhauer Cure (2006)?
IY: I don't think in terms of pathology very often. Rather, I wanted to describe how group therapy operates, how groups work, and how they can help people. The public's understanding of group therapy is completely inadequate, largely because the mass media portrayals of groups are so clouded. It is important for the general public to have a clear idea as to what transpires in groups. I also wanted to talk about the philosopher Schopenhauer and his contributions. Schopenhauer himself had a certain kind of pathology, so I did work with that. But the pathology didn't come first.
Most significant in thinking about Schopenhauer is the chronic depression he had throughout his life, his anhedonia, and his major interpersonal problems, as he was an extremely isolated person. So I worked with those in the novel, not because I was particularly interested in that form of pathology, but because if I was very interested in how Schopenhauer's personality issues influenced the content of his work - the truths he thought he'd arrived at.
I used the group therapy setting to explore these questions. Not with Schopenhauer directly, of course, as I couldn't figure out a way to get him into a therapy group (although I did spend a lot of time trying to find a way to do this). Ultimately I created a character, Phillip, who was kind of a Schopenhauer clone, with the personality traits and world view to make him exactly like Schopenhauer. So, indirectly, I was having Schopenhauer treated in a therapy group.
NAJP: What is the greatest challenge of being a therapist?
IY: I'd say one of the biggest challenges is to gain as much self understanding as possible, because the most important and effective way we can really help the patient is through our own selves. We have to be able...