Biography

Irvin D. Yalom was born on June 13, 1931 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He is a writer, known for Shoot the Messenger, Group (2020) and When Nietzsche Wept (2007). He was previously married to Marilyn Yalom.

Emeritus professor of psychiatry and author.

During my childhood, Washington was a segregated city, and I lived in the midst of a poor, black neighborhood. Life on the streets was often perilous. Indoor reading was my refuge and, twice a week, I made the hazardous bicycle trek to the central library at seventh and K streets to stock up on supplies.

My book choices were capricious, directed in part by the library architecture; the large, centrally placed bookcase on biography caught my attention early, and I spent an entire year going through that bookcase from A (John Adams) to Z (Zoroaster). But it was mainly in fiction where I found a refuge, an alternate, more satisfying world, a source of inspiration and wisdom. Sometime early in life I developed the notion - one which I have never relinquished - that writing a novel is the very finest thing a person can do.

Psychiatry proved (and proves to this day) endlessly intriguing, and I have approached all of my patients with a sense of wonderment at the story that will unfold. I believe that a different therapy must be constructed for each patient because each has a unique story. As the years pass, this attitude moves me farther and farther from the center of professional psychiatry, which is now so fiercely driven by economic forces in precisely opposite directions - namely accurate deindividualizing (symptom-based) diagnosis and uniform, protocol-driven, brief therapy for all.

Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I'm still learning.