Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Schopenhauer Cure

At book club we discussed The Schopenhauer Cure, by Irvin Yalom, a well-known psychiatrist.

It's a tale of group therapy, alternating with a psycho-biography of the eccentric Schopenhauer. So it's part fiction, part history.

He's mixed two books into one!
But I'd rather that had been left undone.

The group therapy part includes a character who has been cured of sex addiction by his reading of Schopenhauer. But in place of his sex addiction he has acquired manners that are truly bizarre. Can group therapy shatter the hard shell he has created around his vulnerable self?

Yalom is the author of a textbook on group therapy, so I guess he should know how it works, but it didn't quite come alive for me, I guess because it sounded a little too pat - no one ever seemed to be struggling enough to admit to their deep inner secrets.

I know it's his dominion.
But that's my dour opinion.

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