" انسان از زمان بیماری تا هنگام مرگ دیگر تنهاست و تنهاتر می میرد. دوستان متظاهرانه تا گور همراهیش می کنند اما حتی پیش از آن که در گور جای گیرد، از او روی گردانیده اند"

من با این کتاب ارتباط خوبی نتونستم برقرار کنم شاید به خاطر صوتی بودنش یا شاید به خاطر اینکه ترکیبی از چیزایی بود که جدا جدا دوستشون دارم ولی به این شکل، نه...

"برای خردمندتر شدن باید دانشجو بمانید"

به هر حال ۶ مورد روانپزشکی با زبانی روان و ساده گهگاه با آمیزه ای از تخیل بیان شده و مورد بحث قرار می گیرن. موارد اولیه رو بیشتر از دو مورد آخر دوست داشتم که طبق گفته نویسنده موارد ۲،۳ و ۴ کاملا کاقعی بودند که احتمالا همین حذف قسمت تخیلی داستان باعث علاقه بیشتر من به این کیس ها شده بود.

"ما می کوشیم زندگی را دو نفری تجربه کنیم ولی هر یک از ما مجبوریم تنها بمیریم. کسی قادر نیست با ما یا به جای ما بمیرد."

یالوم در مورد رواندرمانی های مذکور، از اسلوب اگزیستانسیالیسم وارد مرحله درمان و روانکاوی می شه و توضیحاتی رو در رابطه با بیماران می ده با وجود این که در قسمت هایی از کتاب ایده پردازی ها و روند درمانی جذاب می شن، به طور کلی فکر می کنم خوندن کتاب رواندرمانی اگزیستانسیال مفیدتر باشه.

"این زندگی را نمی شود به تعویق انداخت. باید همین حالا آن را زیست. نمی شود به آخر هفته، تعطیلات، وقتی بچه ها خانه برای رفتن به کالج ترک کردند و یا به سال های بعد از بازنشستگی موکولش کرد. بارها این مرثیه از آنان شنیدم که حیف باید تا حالا صبر می کردم... باید بدنم طعمه سرطان می شد و بعد یاد می گرفتم که چطور باید زندگی کرد"

به طور کلی نیمه اول کتاب رو بیشتر دوست داشتم و برای من حرف های جالبی در زمینه درمان روانپزشکی بودند اما کتاب در کل شاید اون همه که انتظار داشتم، نتونست راضیم کنه.

"درمانگر را واداشته ام که برای هر بیمار درمانی نو بیافریند... امر خطیر درمان باید زنده و ارگانیک باشد... در حقیقت این شکل‌دهی مشترک بخش جدایی ناپذیر کار درمانی است" ( )

Neste livro, Yalom faz um acerto de contas com seu passado e traz também outras histórias sobre como enfrentar enfermidades de corpo e de alma, pondo em foco a relação paciente-terapeuta, com seus entendimentos, desentendimentos

This is my favourite book by Irv Yalom. He is a wonderful writer and teller of stories, but there are many books I enjoy for those reasons. Yalom I enjoy because of its philosophical elements wrapped around with real-life stories.

Each chapter is a story of therapy that begins with his identification with his patient as being-all-of -us-in-it-together and ends with the solving of an existential problem and an easement, if not a cure, of the problem that led the person to Yalom in the first place.

One of the reasons I like Yalom so much is that he makes sense, he addresses issues that we all will have to confront in our lives. Contrasting him is Dr. M. Scott Peck who also wrote therapy books but from a strongly Christian viewpoint and firmly believed in the existence of evil and the devil. (His last book dealt with an exorcism he performed which has to be unique among practising psychiatrists). I believe that from a viewpoint in the distant future, we will probably look back on today's religions as quaint and interesting myths and folklore, much as we do the various Egyptian, Roman and Greek cults but the existential problems will still be with us in the same ways as they are today. And the insights gained from reading Yalom's talk-solutions to his patients' problems will translate into any place and any time. ( )

Irvin Yalom’s Momma and the Meaning of Life consists of six tales of psychotherapy, four nonfiction and two fiction. Yalom, renowned relationship-based, here-and-now psychiatrist, tackles his personal mother issues in “Momma and the Meaning of Life.” In “Travels with Paula,” Yalom writes about his relationship with a breast-cancer patient that revolutionized the therapy of death in California. “Southern Comfort” offers the reader a look into group therapy in a psychiatric ward. “Seven Advanced Lessons in the Therapy of Grief” details Yalom’s seven-year therapy with a female surgeon who lost her 45-year-old husband, both parents and her godson in a two-year span. The last two stories, “Double Exposure” and “The Hungarian Cat Curse” revisit the fictional psychiatrist Dr. Ernest Lash who readers met in Yalom’s novel, Lying on the Couch.
More at http://annotationnation.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/momma-and-the-meaning-of-life-t...

Tales of therapy are also tales of therapists, and Irvin D. Yalom--author of much bestselling psychiatric fiction and nonfiction--is a seasoned storyteller. This new collection of "tales from the couch," part memoir and part fiction, is the work of a therapist unafraid to become deeply engaged with his patients; people, not pathology, are the stuff of Yalom's psychotherapy. Ego, doubt, and fantasy are rarely confined to the couch, and the doctor learns as much from his patients as they from him.

Here Yalom introduces us to Paula, whose losing fight against cancer teaches us that fear is only one of the many colors that brighten our dying; to Irene, a skilled surgeon whose dreams provide tantalizing clues for the psychological gumshoe intent on discovering the irrational terror behind her impressive intellect; to Magnolia, the earth mother whose inexplicable paralysis and imaginary infestations seemed her body's way of punishing her for aspirations aimed too high; and to Momma herself, half protector, half mythological monster, guardian at the gates of the psychotherapist's own unconscious. And, opening up the case files of the fictional Ernest Lash, Yalom reminds us that psychiatrists, too, are human. Like Oliver Sacks, Yalom spins the labyrinth threads of consciousness into the rich tapestry of something much grander. Therapy is not for the weak of heart, doctor or patient; in these pages, the journey toward healing and self-awareness reveals itself to be not about passivity, but courage. --Patrizia DiLucchio

Following the "tales from the clinic" formula that helped make his Love's Executioner a bestseller, psychiatrist Yalom reveals much more of himself this time around. He starts with a soul-baring account of his relationship with his mother, in Yalom's description a domineering woman who was intensely proud of her famous son. Their dance of mutual fear, control and deceit instilled patterns that took Yalom years to unlearn.

In this long-awaited follow-up to the bestselling Love's Executioner, master psycho-therapist Irvin Yalom once again probes the mysteries and marvels at the heart of the therapeutic encounter.

"Like Freud, Yalom is a graceful and canny writer. The fascinating, moving, enervating, inspiring, unexpected stuff of psychotherapy is told with economy and, most surprising, with humor." -The Washington Post Book World review of Love's Executioner

As the public grows disillusioned with therapeutic quick fixes, people are looking for a deeper psychotherapeutic experience to make life more meaningful and satisfying. What really happens in therapy? What promises and perils does it hold for them?

No one writes about therapy-or indeed the dilemmas of the human condition-with more acuity, style, and heart than Irvin Yalom. Here he combines the storytelling skills so widely praised in Love's Executioner with the wisdom of the compassionate and fully engaged psychotherapist.

In these six compelling tales of therapy, Yalom introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters-Paula, who faces death and stares it down; Magnolia, into whose ample lap Yalom longs to pour his own sorrows; Irene, who learns to seek out anger and plunge into it. And there's Momma, old-fashioned, ill-tempered, who drifts into Yalom's dreams and tramples through his thoughts. At once wildly entertaining and deeply thoughtful, Momma and the Meaning of Life is a work of rare insight and imagination.