e and focusing on outside thing to make her feel better about herself. One thing she mentioned, after finally taking a risk at exploring her inside, was that she felt empty. In the sessions there was rarely any talk about Betty’s weight issue. This may be a surprise to some, but Dr. Yalom knew that that issue would be resolved once she took some responsibility for herself and the way she really felt inside. Betty walked out of the last session felling much better about herself. This was not simply because she lost weight, but because she finally realized she was free to make her own choices, and she was taking responsibility for her past in order to preserve her future.In order to have healthy relationships with people and enrich others with our company, we must first learn to tolerate ourselves. With this in mind we can also say that we can not get everything we need in order to survive from other people, because ultimately we are alone. Love’s Executioner is the title of a chapter in Yalom’s book that deals with a woman who is deeply in love, so deeply in love that her life is in ruins. Not only does this woman fail to live responsibly, but also she fails to live at all. This woman’s name is Thelma. At first, Dr. Yalom was critical of taking her in, because he did not like to work with people who were in love, but he did and ended up helping her make some major accomplishments. The reason Thelma was having issues was because she fell in love with her therapist. When she showed up for therapy all she could talk about was how much she missed him. One day Dr. Yalom had a breakthrough question when he asked how she would respond if her lover died. She told him that it would be all right as long as he expressed that he cared for her. This helped Dr. Yalom to understand that there was the closeness missing in Thelma’s life. He explained to her that she always avoided talking about the things tha...
