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Irvin Yalom began his talk by praising those who had influenced him most as a clinician and as a writer. Karen Horney was celebrated as having provided Yalom with a different way of looking at both interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics. Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Rollo May were noted as having influenced Yalom greatly with their theoretical constructions, appeal to existential issues, and lucidity in communicating via the written word.
Yalom continued by sharing how fiction writing is his current, primary passion. His style of writing, however, is designed to raise existential issues and explore the psychotherapeutic process and technique in an effort to ameliorate the anxiety inherent in our existence. Yalom's interests include an interesting mix between group therapy, existential psychotherapy, and storytelling. Group therapy, he feels, is the natural arena for resolving problems and issues in interpersonal relationships. For him, it is the most effective setting in which to study and modify maladaptive behavior. The idea of learning new ways to relate, Yalom feels is the most important contribution of group work.
For Yalom, existential psychotherapy deals with those individuals who are despaired as a result of a confrontation with the givens or “ultimate concerns” of our existence. Most significant in existential therapy are the ultimate concerns of death, isolation, freedom, and meaninglessness. According to Yalom, our denial or repression of these issues serves to promote self-alienation. A core existential conflict is the tension between the awareness of the inevitability of death and the wish for continued living. An awareness of one's mortality triggers anxiety, according to Yalom.
For Yalom, there is always some unbridgeable gap between our inner experience and the inner experience of others. This results in another existential conflict, one between an awareness of absolute isolation and a wish for human contact—our wish to be a par