---
product_id: 124201069
title: "Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir"
price: "€ 28.52"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.it/products/124201069-becoming-myself-a-psychiatrists-memoir
store_origin: IT
region: Italy
---

# Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

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desertcart.com: Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir: 9781541698994: Yalom, Irvin D.: Books

Review: The gift of a well lived life - A Psychiatrist’s Well Lived Life Irvin D. Yalom. “Becoming Myself. A Psychiatrist’s Memoir.” New York: Basic Books, 2017. I like books written by mental health clinicians who have lived a full life, and use their wealth of experience to tell us informative stories. Yalom tells stories, shares the importance of his dreams and those of his patients, his ways of doing therapy and his journey from 1930’s Washington D.C. to present day Palo Alto – along with his side trips around the world, not to mention all the remarkable people he met. At 85 years of age, Yalom still sees patients, consults, writes --- and has much to say in this wonderful memoir. He is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University in Palo, Alto California. He has authored many books including: The Schopenhauer Cure, The Gift of Therapy, Concise Guide to Group Psychotherapy, Lying on the Couch, Momma and the Meaning of Life, and Existential Therapy. My favorite part of his memoir is when he discusses his ideas about his book Existential Therapy – a book I treasure. Before reading Yalom’s Existential Therapy book I found readings on existential philosophy filled with barbed wire prose. But not Yalom --- he steeped himself in the writings of Rollo May, among other existential writers --- and even entered therapy with May. Yalom writes: “I gradually drifted away from my original affiliation with medical science and began grounding myself in the humanities…I embraced Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer, and Epicurus…Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Beckett, Kundera…” For example, Yalom focused on death anxiety, and started a group for females with breast cancer – to confront his own fears and help others. Yalom writes about one of his patients who said: “What a pity I had to wait until now, until my body was riddled with cancer, to learn to how to live.” Yalom says the above phrase took up permanent residence in his mind and helped shape his practice of existential therapy. Yalom writes: “though the reality of death may destroy us, the idea of death may save us. It brings home the realization that since we have only one chance at life, we should live it fully and end it with the fewest of regrets possible.” Yalom divided his book on existential therapy in four sections: the ultimate concerns: death, freedom, isolation and meaning. He confronts our anxieties about death --- drawing on the works of philosophers and writers, and his work with dying patients. He takes up freedom as the ultimate concern of many existential thinkers---a freedom that demands we are the authors of our own lives and must take responsibility for our actions. For Yalom, isolation is not interpersonal isolation but the idea that we are each thrown alone into the world and depart alone. He discusses isolation by focusing on the therapist-patient relationship --- examines our wishes to fuse with another and our fear of individuation. His 4th concern, meaning, touches on such questions as “What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What sense does life have?
Review: Thank you Dr. Yalom! - Beautiful, thoughtful writing, fascinating life, lots of cool insights. I have a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley (1967) and I appreciate Dr. Yalom's study of and appreciation for the cool dudes of philosophy. I love all Dr. Yalom's books. Reading his memoir, I was able to revisit some of my favorite old haunts because Yalom lives in Palo Alto and I used to live in Redwood City and ride my bike around the Stanford campus. The Stanford University Bookstore was a favorite stop because it has a great selection of books by its wonderful faculty. I used to ride to the art cinema in Palo Alto and get an ice cream cone so I have fond memories of that little village where he lives. I also lived in Hawaii for a couple of years and in Greece for a year as did Dr. Yalom. Even though I never met Dr. Yalom, he covers the same zeitgeist as experienced by my generation, with better writing and greater depth of understanding than most of us could produce. We have in Dr. Yalom's memoir a great documentation of our shared history, humanity and few regrets.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #53,378 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #28 in Medical Psychotherapy TA & NLP #40 in Popular Psychology Psychotherapy #810 in Memoirs (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,771 Reviews |

## Images

![Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/818zI2W68hL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The gift of a well lived life
*by S***E on April 14, 2018*

A Psychiatrist’s Well Lived Life Irvin D. Yalom. “Becoming Myself. A Psychiatrist’s Memoir.” New York: Basic Books, 2017. I like books written by mental health clinicians who have lived a full life, and use their wealth of experience to tell us informative stories. Yalom tells stories, shares the importance of his dreams and those of his patients, his ways of doing therapy and his journey from 1930’s Washington D.C. to present day Palo Alto – along with his side trips around the world, not to mention all the remarkable people he met. At 85 years of age, Yalom still sees patients, consults, writes --- and has much to say in this wonderful memoir. He is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University in Palo, Alto California. He has authored many books including: The Schopenhauer Cure, The Gift of Therapy, Concise Guide to Group Psychotherapy, Lying on the Couch, Momma and the Meaning of Life, and Existential Therapy. My favorite part of his memoir is when he discusses his ideas about his book Existential Therapy – a book I treasure. Before reading Yalom’s Existential Therapy book I found readings on existential philosophy filled with barbed wire prose. But not Yalom --- he steeped himself in the writings of Rollo May, among other existential writers --- and even entered therapy with May. Yalom writes: “I gradually drifted away from my original affiliation with medical science and began grounding myself in the humanities…I embraced Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer, and Epicurus…Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Beckett, Kundera…” For example, Yalom focused on death anxiety, and started a group for females with breast cancer – to confront his own fears and help others. Yalom writes about one of his patients who said: “What a pity I had to wait until now, until my body was riddled with cancer, to learn to how to live.” Yalom says the above phrase took up permanent residence in his mind and helped shape his practice of existential therapy. Yalom writes: “though the reality of death may destroy us, the idea of death may save us. It brings home the realization that since we have only one chance at life, we should live it fully and end it with the fewest of regrets possible.” Yalom divided his book on existential therapy in four sections: the ultimate concerns: death, freedom, isolation and meaning. He confronts our anxieties about death --- drawing on the works of philosophers and writers, and his work with dying patients. He takes up freedom as the ultimate concern of many existential thinkers---a freedom that demands we are the authors of our own lives and must take responsibility for our actions. For Yalom, isolation is not interpersonal isolation but the idea that we are each thrown alone into the world and depart alone. He discusses isolation by focusing on the therapist-patient relationship --- examines our wishes to fuse with another and our fear of individuation. His 4th concern, meaning, touches on such questions as “What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What sense does life have?

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Thank you Dr. Yalom!
*by F***S on June 11, 2018*

Beautiful, thoughtful writing, fascinating life, lots of cool insights. I have a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley (1967) and I appreciate Dr. Yalom's study of and appreciation for the cool dudes of philosophy. I love all Dr. Yalom's books. Reading his memoir, I was able to revisit some of my favorite old haunts because Yalom lives in Palo Alto and I used to live in Redwood City and ride my bike around the Stanford campus. The Stanford University Bookstore was a favorite stop because it has a great selection of books by its wonderful faculty. I used to ride to the art cinema in Palo Alto and get an ice cream cone so I have fond memories of that little village where he lives. I also lived in Hawaii for a couple of years and in Greece for a year as did Dr. Yalom. Even though I never met Dr. Yalom, he covers the same zeitgeist as experienced by my generation, with better writing and greater depth of understanding than most of us could produce. We have in Dr. Yalom's memoir a great documentation of our shared history, humanity and few regrets.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Buena lectura - Libro usado no en tan buen estado
*by C***O on August 27, 2025*

Buen libro, me encanta el autor. El libro usado que pedí decía “como nuevo” pero no está en tan buen estado.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir
- The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients
- Love's Executioner: & Other Tales of Psychotherapy

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*Product available on Desertcart Italy*
*Store origin: IT*
*Last updated: 2026-01-30*