Irvin Yalom
| Irvin D. Yalom | |
|---|---|
Irvin D. Yalom
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| Born | Irvin David Yalom June 13, 1931 Washington, D.C. |
| Residence | United States |
| Fields | Psychotherapy |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
| Alma mater | George Washington University |
| Influences | Otto Rank |
Irvin David Yalom (born 13 June 1931) is an American existential psychiatrist who is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, as well as author of both fiction and nonfiction.
Yalom was born in Washington, D.C. About fifteen years prior to his birth in the United States, Yalom's Jewish parents, based in his early autobiographical notes, immigrated from Russia (though, as it is mentioned in the recent documentary/ biography "Yalom's Cure", 2014, their country of origin was Poland ) and eventually opened a Washington DC grocery store on 1st Street and Seaton Place. Yalom spent much of his childhood reading books in the family house above the grocery store and in a local library. After graduating from high school, he attended George Washington University and then Boston University School of Medicine.
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 discusses ways in which the human person can respond to these concerns either in a functional or dysfunctional fashion.
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