It took me a while to finish it and now I'm working in the field and I'm a little more cynical of the book. My therapy goals with these patients are ambitious: in addition to symptom removal and alleviation of pain, I strive to facilitate personal growth and basic character change. Loved the inclusion of the Harry Stack Sullivan quote describing therapy as "a discussion of two people, one of them more anxious than the other. Shortly before my experience in the Huntington library, I had reread his Letters to a Young Poetand I consciously attempted raise myself to his standards of honesty, inclusiveness, and generosity of spirit. However, a definition makes no sense if you don’t understand the meaning of the words it encompasses.

Yalom is very human with his clients, even in the places where many of us would pretend to greater perfection than we could ever have.Anyone interested in psychotherapy or personal growth will rejoice at the publication of The Gift of Therapy, a masterwork from one of the most accomplished psychological thinkers of our day. Keep in mind that our patients generally come to see us because of their lack of success in developing and maintaining gratifying interpersonal relationships.

One needs technique in learning to play the piano but eventually, if one is to make music, one must transcend learned technique and trust one's spontaneous moves. if we hope for more significant therapeutic change, we must encourage our patients to assume responsibility—that is, to apprehend how they themselves contribute to their distress. There are a lot of points in this book that really resonate with what I have felt has helped me as a patient to have a great experience in therapy.

The two modes are different not only because of the format (that is, a group of approximately six to nine members versus a one-to-one setting for existential psychotherapy) but differ fundamentally in their frame of reference. My fourth Yalom book, this text was the perfect supplement to my Masters course in Psychology (actually sometimes the uni course felt like a supplement to the book!