Loves Executioner By Irvin Yalom Analysis

In the book “Loves executioner” by Irvin Yalom begins with a prologue, describing his various encounters with patients. He shares 4 principles of psychotherapy that he found evident in each of their cases “I have found that four givens are particularly relevant to psychotherapy: the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and, finally, the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life”. In order for an individual to successfully heal and gain the most from therapy, they have to overcome their limitations they set upon themselves. As in the case of “The Wrong one Died” Penny could not overcome the death of her child Chrissie and as a result n¬eglected her 2 other sons. While Carlos was unable to form sincere relationships with others, his demoralization of women didn’t help …show more content…
Yalom line of questions: Where is Chrissie? Does she have any memory of this? So you deal with your guilt now by hanging on to Chrissie, by not getting on with your life? I believe these forceful questions pushed Penny to believe that she cannot be responsible and carry the weight of her daughter’s death. It was the process of asking the questions that she avoided that results in the most improvement in penny’s therapy. One of the initial turning points that I found in therapy session was where Yalom say you are guily about two main things. One being that she had not talked about death with Chrissie creating this illusion that the doctor will graciously give her more time to live. Secondly since you didn’t let go of Chrissie you are now stuck for life believing Chrissie is still here with Penny. Penny reaction made me realize that she had understood loud and clear what her dilemmas was. It was this moment that the healing process began for her she had finally