This text made me very very sad. I lost my respect to professional psychotherapists completely. Maybe also to medical doctors.
I am a vet and never judge my patients or even less, their owners based on their outlook. It is against civil rights, at least in my country.
I wonder, how such a person, described in this article, can do his or her work?
It is important to remember his piece was written 20 years ago -- I cited it only because it is still used. And there are many of us who do not start from the same point he does. Nevertheless all of us have blind spots and we do well to try to find them.
I must be one of the few that doesn't worship at the alter of Irvin Yalom. I am not a therapist - just a regular person who during the course of my own therapy has sought to learn more about the process and naturally I've come across his books. I find him beyond arrogant and I cannot imagine that the psychotherapy community at large seems so taken by him. That is, at least the impression I have gotten in my travels through reams of therapy/psychology literature. This is of course not what this post is about. Seems to me that this woman in the story had more courage in her little toe than her therapist could probably hope to ever have. What she should have expected from him was non-judgement and acceptance of what she was and what she got from him it seems could barely be described as tolerance. That she kept herself there knowing that is guts or perserverance or a lot of both. It seems he presents the happy ending as her loss of so much weight but I agree - a happy ending is an acceptance of ourselves as we are and I wonder sometimes if that is nothing more than a pipe-dream.
I recently finished this book, and read that the Betty character admitted she hated being around fat people also (her father, people in Overeaters Anon). I recall from the intro that the accounts are entirely fictionalized - we don't know for certain that Dr. Yalom's prejudice was against fat people, he could have used that as an example about how he brings his own issues into the room. Yes, bad deal to work with a shrink who cannot stand "people like you", buyer beware.
The story showed me that therapists are at risk of bring their stuff into the session and they are responsible for addressing it outside of the session. I had to come close to death in order to take the actions needed to change my size and improve my health. I could not work with a fat therapist as a result, be lied to that she is happy in a size 20 body vs size 12. I don't talk to my therapist (who does not touch fat or thin people) about my size, my diet, my exercise; I talk to my PCP - she has seen the impact on my body.
I've been reading your blog for some time but this is the first time I've been compelled to comment. I've been in therapy for some time and in the past year and a half or so my shrink has seen me lose a bunch of weight and put it right back on. And just this week I mustered up the courage to ask him whether he was as disgusted by my body and my weight gain as I am.
God bless him, he's ten times the man Dr. Yalom is. He assured me that although he is concerned about my distress over the issue, his positive feelings towards me have nothing to do with my "outer package" and everything to do with my inner self. And you know what? I actually believed him.
I can only hope Betty eventually found her way to somebody like that.
An admission... I read a little of Yalom 20-25 years ago and found myself thoroughly unimpressed. I know that he has legions of fans out there and that he is an advocate for greater depth in therapy, yet I found him so thoroughly uninteresting and lacking in depth that I've never gone back to him. Perhaps that's an unfair assessment based upon my very limited reading of Yalom, but that is my recollection.
I can't say that I disagree!
I've been reading your blog a little while but lurking rather than commenting, but I feel like commenting on this post. The issue of needing to be with a therapist who has a more positive view of me than I do of myself comes to mind. Left to my own devices, I revert back to "I suck" pretty easily. My therapist doesn't seem to judge my size or shape (I guess I'm just a little overweight though I tend to think of myself as a lot overweight).
With the overweight issue, I think having people react with repulsion is so damaging, even for the most well-adjusted person. And for someone with a trauma history, feeling repulsive (baselessly) is such a problem to begin with, so it is definitely better not to have any added reason to maintain this feeling/belief.
Thanks for the post and for your blogging.
I know that therapists are human and flawed just like anyone, but as a patient, I have to ask myself how someone could devote his life to caring for/about the minds and emotional states of others and yet retain such visceral disgust and hatred for certain patients? I guess my point is, where does a therapist get off thinking about anyone, let alone a patient, in this objectifying, judgmental way? In other words, "How dare these blubbery people exist in MY WORLD?" All that training, and he never internalized that other people don't exist to please him, and women aren't there to decorate his world?
I wouldn't be that harsh. We all have blind spots and because prejudice against fat is a socially acceptable prejudice, it is more readily expressed than many others.
It's hard to realize that the internal criticisms and judgments we work so hard to overcome really *are* reflected in the minds of others, even those of presumably empathetic observers. So when people tell you things like "relax, you're your own worst critic," I guess they really are just blowing smoke. Your "even worse" critic could be your own therapist! But I have to assert that I don't think I'm being any harsher than Yalom. A highly educated and experienced clinician shouldn't be excused for bringing so much baggage and partiality to bear on a patient, and I'm not inclined to make allowances because the prejudice is common. The language he used speaks of a deep personal revulsion and contempt that he should have taken care to recognize and process. He should be better than that if he's more interested in helping patients than in getting his own needs met.
Again, since it is a fictionalized account, perhaps Betty was not fat but instead anorexic? Or German - and he blamed the whole nation for killing his relatives in death camps? Or she was an atheist and he envisions her damned? Or any other label that we give in society to "those" people?
Based on what he writes, he was aware of his issue and worked to keep it out of the session - but admits he did not do enough. Unless your T is superhuman, there is always going to be some of their personal or work "stuff" that leaks in - getting angry and thinking of their own daughter when you tell the story of your abuse, but also of that abuser they are also counseling.
Read the whole story vs. just the snippet excerpted here. I have no feelings regarding Yalom, but it's an interesting book.
Commenting by HaloScan
