YalomS Perspective Of Existential Therapy Essays

YalomS Perspective Of Existential Therapy Existential therapy through the eyes of Dr. Yalom is very fascinating. There is never a fixed life that each person is supposed to live. In his therapy the clients are allowed to find out for themselves what it is they need by receiving adequate questioning from Dr. Yalom. His questioning guides them down the existential path to freedom and responsibility. If we affirm life and live in the present as fully as possible, however, we will not be obsessed with the end of life(Corey p.153). This is the way of thinking for the existential theorist when it comes to patients who deal with death anxiety. Dr. Yalom dealt with this issue when he did a study on bereavement. He put an ad in the paper that asked for volunteers who would be willing to be interviewed. In order to meet the requirements the people had to have grief in their life that they were unable to overcome. A chapter in Yaloms book titled The Wrong One Died went into detail about a woman named Penny. Penny had lost a daughter four years prior to the interview. When she showed up at the office she told the secretary that she needed to see the Dr. Yalom immediately. Pennys life was a struggle ever since the tragedy of losing her daughter. In explaining the reason for not being able to let it go after such a long time, she mentioned how she felt responsible for horrible death. After a few meetings of therapy Penny came to realize that her daughter was not coming back, and she began to deal with the real issues that were causing her so much pain. She told Dr. Yalom that the way she handled her daughters death made her feel extremely guilty. So guilty that she couldnt even remember the actual dying process that her daughter went through. Dr. Yalom asked why she felt so guilty. In doing this he was looking for signs that would lead him to better understand the core of her prolonged grieving of the daughter. She told him that she never actually let herself believe that her daughter was going to die, even though it was as plain as day. And because of that, she never dealt with the real issues with her daughter. After several meetings Penny was finally able to see her own life and how this guilt she had was causing problems for the rest of the family. She had two sons. After finding out that neither of them lived at home, Dr. Yalom asked how Penny felt about it. This opened up doors for Penny and allowed her to take responsibility for the things in life that she could control. In the end, she had a good understanding of death and therefore was able to live life more fully by getting both kids back into the home and rejoining the family. Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. We are put in certain situations that we have no control over, but we also have a choice in that situation as to what direction we are going to go. The ability to make that choice is freedom and going in the right direction, the one that benefits humanity and us is the responsible choice. This topic brings us to the chapter Fat Lady. In this chapter Dr. Yalom treats a woman by the name of Betty. This woman walked into his office for the first time weighing 250 lbs. She was not only overweight, but she was very depressed as well. This was a hard case for Dr. Yalom because he had never viewed obesity in a positive way. He was very cautious of the fact that this might affect his ability to treat her, but eventually felt comfortable with taking it on. Betty moved from New York to California because of her job. It was not a move that she took willingly, but she did it anyway, because she saw no reason not to. She told this to Dr. Yalom early on in the sessions. This was the first step in determining the initial cause of Bettys depression. Eventually Dr. Yalom got Betty to realize that