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A review by millennial_dandy
Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom
3.0
'Love's Executioner' is an interesting short story collection because it reads (intentionally so according to the author) like fiction but is closely based on ten of author and psychotherapist Irvin Yalom's actual psychotherapy cases.
All ten cases seem to be from around the same time in his career (the late 1980s) and some even have direct overlap with patients from one story interacting with patients from another.
The titular story, 'Love's Executioner' is emblematic of the best and the worst of Yalom's writing tendencies. His observations as a psychotherapist are incredibly astute. Not only does he give us, the reader, some really interesting insights into the practice of psychotherapy (at least at the time), he also is able to reveal much of himself and his struggles to help his patient as he wrestles with his own biases and what he calls 'countertransference.'
However, though the bones of the story are very strong, Yalom has a tendency to overwrite. 'Love's Executioner' is (in the audiobook edition) over two hours long and could easily have been cut down by half an hour. There's a lot of back and forth between him and the patient that doesn't lead anywhere nor meaningfully develop their relationship.
This is a problem that plagues the entire collection. There are a few stories that he manages to keep compact, but this issue really makes the reading process drag, especially towards the middle.
Speaking of the middle. I ran across the fashion advice somewhere that when you think you're finished putting together an outfit you should take off one accessory, and I think that very much applies here too.
Perhaps the temptation to hit exactly 10 stories was just too strong for either Yalom or his editor to resist, but they simply weren't all equally as good. There are some very obvious standouts: 'If Rape Were Legal,' 'The Fat Lady,' and 'The Wrong One Died.' Some of the others rather bleed together and/or lack the harmony of being both interesting stories with interesting observations.
Ironically, though Yalom claims in the introduction that his aim is to explore the philosophical backdrop to psychotherapy, I personally found those insights infinitely less compelling and sometimes even rather forced when compared to everything around the 'plot.'
But when it's good, it's good.
The main criticism of the collection seems to be twofold: one, that it is exploitative, and two, that Yalom shows his ass just a bit too much.
To the first criticism I would say that if he did indeed do his due diligence to both protect the patients' identities and get their permission to tell their stories, no harm no foul.
To the second...it's a book just as much about the pitfalls of being a psychotherapist as it is about the issues facing psychotherapy patients--perhaps even more so. To that end, I think it was successful. It's true that Yalom is incredibly open about his sometimes very ugly thoughts about his patients. His feelings of disgust towards fat people, his attraction to a female patient, how boring he finds some of his patients, his, at times, unprofessional curiosity. In a lot of ways, that IS what 'Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy' is about: how impossible it can be for a therapist to be completely objective when they are just as human as their patients. How to compartmentalize, how to prevent your own biases and curiosity from driving a session, how to recognize your own limitations and learn from failure.
As an educator of adults, I face many of the same issues he raises: the temptation to give the answer rather than foster inductive reasoning skills, liking certain students more than others but having to treat them all equally, feeling bored, feeling burnt out but having to keep up the façade of interest and vitality.
My advice: don't read it straight through like I did; get a sense of what each of the stories is about and cherry-pick those which seem the most interesting, especially if you're reading it as a layperson like I was.
All ten cases seem to be from around the same time in his career (the late 1980s) and some even have direct overlap with patients from one story interacting with patients from another.
The titular story, 'Love's Executioner' is emblematic of the best and the worst of Yalom's writing tendencies. His observations as a psychotherapist are incredibly astute. Not only does he give us, the reader, some really interesting insights into the practice of psychotherapy (at least at the time), he also is able to reveal much of himself and his struggles to help his patient as he wrestles with his own biases and what he calls 'countertransference.'
However, though the bones of the story are very strong, Yalom has a tendency to overwrite. 'Love's Executioner' is (in the audiobook edition) over two hours long and could easily have been cut down by half an hour. There's a lot of back and forth between him and the patient that doesn't lead anywhere nor meaningfully develop their relationship.
This is a problem that plagues the entire collection. There are a few stories that he manages to keep compact, but this issue really makes the reading process drag, especially towards the middle.
Speaking of the middle. I ran across the fashion advice somewhere that when you think you're finished putting together an outfit you should take off one accessory, and I think that very much applies here too.
Perhaps the temptation to hit exactly 10 stories was just too strong for either Yalom or his editor to resist, but they simply weren't all equally as good. There are some very obvious standouts: 'If Rape Were Legal,' 'The Fat Lady,' and 'The Wrong One Died.' Some of the others rather bleed together and/or lack the harmony of being both interesting stories with interesting observations.
Ironically, though Yalom claims in the introduction that his aim is to explore the philosophical backdrop to psychotherapy, I personally found those insights infinitely less compelling and sometimes even rather forced when compared to everything around the 'plot.'
But when it's good, it's good.
The main criticism of the collection seems to be twofold: one, that it is exploitative, and two, that Yalom shows his ass just a bit too much.
To the first criticism I would say that if he did indeed do his due diligence to both protect the patients' identities and get their permission to tell their stories, no harm no foul.
To the second...it's a book just as much about the pitfalls of being a psychotherapist as it is about the issues facing psychotherapy patients--perhaps even more so. To that end, I think it was successful. It's true that Yalom is incredibly open about his sometimes very ugly thoughts about his patients. His feelings of disgust towards fat people, his attraction to a female patient, how boring he finds some of his patients, his, at times, unprofessional curiosity. In a lot of ways, that IS what 'Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy' is about: how impossible it can be for a therapist to be completely objective when they are just as human as their patients. How to compartmentalize, how to prevent your own biases and curiosity from driving a session, how to recognize your own limitations and learn from failure.
As an educator of adults, I face many of the same issues he raises: the temptation to give the answer rather than foster inductive reasoning skills, liking certain students more than others but having to treat them all equally, feeling bored, feeling burnt out but having to keep up the façade of interest and vitality.
My advice: don't read it straight through like I did; get a sense of what each of the stories is about and cherry-pick those which seem the most interesting, especially if you're reading it as a layperson like I was.