Irvin David Yalom (born June 13, 1931 in Washington, D.C.) is an American psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, psychiatrist, and writer. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Stanford University and the author of numerous academic books and novels. Yalom is considered the most important living representative of existential psychotherapy. He is the recipient of the 2009 International Sigmund Freud Prize for Psychotherapy.
The book Every Day a Little Closer, which he published in 1974 in the form of an epistolary novel with Ginny Elkins [the pseudonym of his former client], is based on an unusual experiment. The client was a writer and her year-long participation in one of his therapy groups had been relatively unsuccessful. He therefore suggested individual therapy on the condition that, instead of paying him, she write a free-flowing, uncensored summary of each therapy session, in which she expressed all the feelings and thoughts she had not verbalized during the session. He did exactly the same. Exchanging notes every few months revealed the great discrepancies between sensations and memories regarding the same sessions. At first he used the notes in therapeutic teaching, then they were published as a book. The advice in his book The Panama Hat is based on notes from 45 years of clinical practice.
Fiction and memoir
- 1974 Every Day Gets a Little Closer ISBN 0-465-02119-0
- 1989 Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy[13] ISBN 0-465-04280-5
- 1992 When Nietzsche Wept[14][15] ISBN 0-465-09172-5 (Kindle edition 2019)
- 1996 Lying on the Couch[16] ISBN 0-465-04295-3
- 1999 Momma and the Meaning of Life[17] ISBN 0-749-92038-6
- 2005 The Schopenhauer Cure[18][19] ISBN 978-0-06-621441-2
- 2005 I’m Calling the Police! A Tale of Regression and Recovery[20]
- 2012 The Spinoza Problem[21] ISBN 0-465-02963-9
- 2015 Creatures of a Day – And Other Tales of Psychotherapy,[22] ISBN 978-0-465-02964-8
Filmography
- 2003 Flight from Death (directed by Patrick Shen, featuring Ron Leifer, Robert Jay Lifton, Merlyn Mowrey and Sheldon Solomon and Irvin D. Yalom)[27][28]
- 2007 When Nietzsche Wept (directed by Pinchas Perry, featuring Ben Cross, Armand Assante, Katheryn Winnick)[29]
- 2014 Yalom’s Cure (directed by Sabine Gisiger)
- 2014: Yaloms Anleitung zum Glücklichsein (Originaltitel: Yalom’s cure) von Sabine Gisiger, Dokumentarfilm über Yalom
- 2007: Und Nietzsche weinte von Pinchas Perry, Verfilmung des Romans
- 2003: Flight from Death von Patrick Shen
- 2023: Irvin Yalom – In die Sonne schauen. Regie: Eva Fouquet, NDR, Deutschland, 53 Minuten,
Auszeichnungen und Ehrungen
- 2009: Internationaler Sigmund-Freud-Preis für Psychotherapie
- 2001: Oskar Pfister Award für außergewöhnliche interdisziplinäre Beiträge über Religion und Psychiatrie der American Psychiatric Foundation[2]
- 1992: Commonwealth Club Gold Award for fiction best novel (Und Nietzsche weinte)[3]
- 1987: Fellowship Award der Rockefeller Foundation[4]
- 1977: Fellowship Award der Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
- 1976: Foundation´s Fund Award for research in psychiatry der American Psychiatric Association
- 1974: Edward Strecker Award for significant contribution to the field of psychiatry patient