Irvin D. Yalom

Irvin David Yalom is an American existential psychiatrist who is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and the author of both fiction and nonfiction. After graduating with a BA from George Washington University in 1952 and a Doctor of Medicine from Boston University School of Medicine in 1956, he went on to complete his internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and his residency at the Phipps Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and completed his training in 1960. 

After two years of Army service at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu, Yalom began his academic career at Stanford University. He was appointed to the faculty in 1963 and promoted over the following years, being granted tenure in 1968. Soon after this period, he made some of his most lasting contributions by teaching about group psychotherapy and developing his model of existential psychotherapy. His writing on existential psychology centers on what he refers to as the four "givens" of the human condition: isolation, meaninglessness, mortality, and freedom, and he discusses ways in which the human person can respond to these concerns either in a functional or dysfunctional fashion.

In 1970, Yalom published The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, discussing the research literature around group psychotherapy and the social psychology of small group behavior. This work explores how individuals function in a group context and how members of group therapy gain from their participation group. In addition to his scholarly, nonfiction writing, Yalom has produced several novels and experimented with writing techniques. In Every Day Gets a Little Closer, Yalom invited a patient to co-write about therapy experience. The book has two distinct voices looking at the same experience in alternating sections. 

Yalom's works have been used as collegiate textbooks and standard reading for psychology students. His new and unique view of the patient/client relationship has been added to psychology programs' curriculum at schools such as John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Yalom has continued to maintain a part-time private practice and authored several video documentaries on therapeutic techniques. Yalom is also featured in the 2003 documentary Flight from Death, which investigates the relationship between human violence and fear of death as related to subconscious influences. 

In addition, the Irvin D. Yalom Institute of Psychotherapy, which he co-directs with Professor Ruthellen Josselson, works to advance Yalom's approach to psychotherapy. This unique combination of integrating more philosophy into psychotherapy can be considered psycho sophy. He was married to author and historian Marilyn Yalom, who died in November 2019. Their four children are Eve, a gynecologist; Reid, a photographer; Victor, a psychologist, and entrepreneur; and Ben, a theater director.