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This is a good book. It is rich in content and is well-written. It is clinically oriented, abundantly illustrated with examples from the literature, which is far-ranging, and from the author's practice, much of this from experience with groups.
But its reach is a little too long. This follows from the Existential umbrella under which Yalom organizes all his material; existential factors as causes of anxiety are stretched too far. The “fear of death” is given as a common cause of anxiety in children. In my experience, fear of death is relatively seldom seen in children. To reduce all excessive anxiety to the fear of death is excessively inferential. This criticism holds for other “fear of death” examples, as in the instance of a case of transvestism.
It would also seem to me that failure in maturity leads to failure to deal with the existential realities of life, not the other way around. The factors that block growth and maturity, be they endogenous or social, would need the primary attention. It is these that lead to destructive values, unlived life, dependence on an “ultimate rescuer,” a sense of meaninglessness, and failure to “actualize oneself.” (Incidentally, Kurt Goldstein uses this phrase in the 1937 English translation of his book, ‘The Organism.” I believe this would indictate that Abraham Maslow was not the first to use it, as the author states. In the 1955 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Nebraska Press), Maslow himself states that Goldstein “found it necessary to invent the concept of self-realization to explain the reorganization of the person's capacity after injury.”
Yalom's book is quite eclectic. In addition to material from May, Sartre, Jaspers, and other existentialists, Yalom leans heavily on the “neo-Freudians,” including Fromm, Horney, and Sullivan. He quotes extensively from within and outside the professional psychological fold, including Tolstoy and Buber.
His references to Freud are many, and often have significant reinterpretations. He sh