Creatures of a Day: And other tales of psychotherapy

New
Paperback
2015
$15.44

What makes life worth living? What can we do to lead meaningful lives? And how do we confront our inevitable end? In his long career, eminent psychotherapist and author Irvin Yalom has pressed his patients and readers to grapple with life's two greatest challenges: that we all must die, and that each of us is responsible for leading a life worth living. In Creatures of a Day, he and his patients face the difficulty of these challenges. Although these people have come to Yalom seeking relief, recognition, or meaning, he and they discover that such things are rarely found in the places where we think to look.
Like Love's Executioner and Yalom's other writing, Creatures of a Day provides an intelligent, compassionate, yet still unflinching look at the human soul and all the pain, confusion, and hope that go with it. The power of these stories is amplified by Yalom's reflections on his own life as he reckons with its inevitable end. Suffused with humor, great artistry, and a profound humanity, Creatures of a Day lays bare the necessary task we each face, each day, to make our own lives meaningful.

Synopsis

What makes life worth living? What can we do to lead meaningful lives? And how do we confront our inevitable end? In his long career, eminent psychotherapist and author Irvin Yalom has pressed his patients and readers to grapple with life's two greatest challenges: that we all must die, and that each of us is responsible for leading a life worth living. In Creatures of a Day, he and his patients face the difficulty of these challenges. Although these people have come to Yalom seeking relief, recognition, or meaning, he and they discover that such things are rarely found in the places where we think to look.

Like Love's Executioner and Yalom's other writing, Creatures of a Day provides an intelligent, compassionate, yet still unflinching look at the human soul and all the pain, confusion, and hope that go with it. The power of these stories is amplified by Yalom's reflections on his own life as he reckons with its inevitable end. Suffused with humor, great artistry, and a profound humanity, Creatures of a Day lays bare the necessary task we each face, each day, to make our own lives meaningful.

$15.44

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Publisher: Piatkus
Published: 05 Mar 2015
ISBN 10: 0349407428
ISBN 13: 9780349407425
Book Overview: Eminent psychotherapist and bestselling author, Irvin D Yalom, gives us a new collection of ten absorbing tales of psychotherapy, revealing the mysteries, frustrations, pathos and humour at the heart of the therapeutic encounter.

Media Reviews

Poignant and beautiful insights from a wise therapist looking back on a career, a therapist who happens to be a writer I greatly admire - Creatures of a Day is just what the Doctor ordered! * Abraham Verghese, author of CUTTING FOR STONE *
Dr. Yalom has written a magical book. Anyone who has ever thought about his or her own aging or mortality will love this book. The result will be that of meeting, up close, a truly wise man, a really kind man, and of feeling deeply understood * George Vaillant, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard University, and author of Triumphs of Experience and Aging Well *
Irvin Yalom has produced a book of such piercing depth that to enter into it is transformative. You feel less like you are reading Creatures of a Day than that it is reading you. Only a handful of books can accomplish such a feat. Give praise that one more has entered this rare and precious list * Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, McArthur Fellow and author of Plato at the Googleplex and Betraying Spinoza *
I've been a deep admirer of Irvin D. Yalom's writing - in fiction and nonfiction - for many years. In Creatures of a Day, he brings together his profound sense of human suffering and joy with a novelist's eye for detail, for narrative moment. These tales of therapy ring with truth, inviting us to consider the most pressing (moral, spiritual) questions with awe, with hope for transformation. A moving and original work * Jay Parini, author of THE LAST STATION *
In Love's Executioner, Irv Yalom invented a new literary genre: narratives of psychotherapy with the pathos of great fiction and the insight of great essays. For those of us who learned so much about human nature and the human condition from Yalom, the publication of Creatures of a Day is a reason to celebrate * Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of HOW THE MIND WORKS and THE SENSE OF STYLE *
A collection of insightful case studies that read like life-affirming short stories. It's a must-read for human psyche buffs. * Sunday Express *

Author Bio

Dr Irvin Yalom is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and the author of many books, including Creatures of a Day and the bestselling Love's Executioner. He and his wife, the author Marilyn Yalom, live in Palo Alto, California.