The Study Of Irvin D.Yalom’s Existential Psychotherapy

Irvin D.Yalom is one of the most influential psychotherapists in contemporary America.His influence is not limited to the United States,but worldwide.His existential orientation about psychological treatment,makes him special in the field of psychotherapy and unique and impressive in psychiatry and psychology.His existential orientation in theory appears as the existence（socialist）therapy,and infiltrates in his ontological foundation about being-in-the-world and the understanding of the psychological pathology mechanism of psychological disease.It has determined his strategy in the psychotherapy practice and method,etc.On the one hand,his existential orientation depends on his profound experience of the process and meaning of life in personal sense,on the other hand,it is deeply influenced by existential philosophy and exist-humanistic psychology in theory expression.In the meanwhile,it is inspired by existentialist literary works.Therefore,not only in the practice of psychotherapy has he achieved success beyond the reach of most people,but also his theory and practice has become such an ideal and a belief about psychological therapy: psychological therapy is a kind of daily way of life to create life meaning,not free from the daily life of an exception fragments of life,which gives new meaning to the mental healing.However,compared with his perhaps achievement and influence on the innovative understanding of psychological therapy and challenge to the traditional psychological treatment mode and the study of psychological treatment,the study of his psychological treatment thought as the theme of research work is barren and deficient.For this kind of situation,this thesis tries to present thoughts origin of psychotherapy,its thought core category and the main treatment technologies systematically,and tries to clarify and reflect the connotation of psychological treatment for the presence of his thoughts under the vision of existential philosophy,thus illustrates the significance of the theory and practice.To be specific,this thesis will study from the following five parts:In the 1^st part,the introduction will briefly explain Irvin D.Yalom’s achievements and status in the field of psychotherapy,and clarify the general temperament and basic features of his existential psychotherapy and its implied about psychological therapy as a way of life and as a professional ideal and faith combined with his personal life history background and clues.In the meantime,the thesis will lead to the necessity of the research topic and the research of this paper,combining with the existing research status quo of psychological treatment thought about him,which provides background for the thesis research work.At the same time,the introduction will also confess the basic idea of this thesis research work.In the 2^nd part,this thesis will inspect and comb Irvin D.Yalom’s existential psychotherapy on thoughts origin of psychotherapy comprehensively.Irvin’s thought is under the influence of many sources.He has learned the existence of philosophy,literature and psychology all important characters in the thoughts.On the basis of the set up basic thinking to the problem of "existence",He has expanded to the psychological treatment.In one of the few articles of Irvin’s psychotherapy research literature,the attention is on the philosophical and psychological thought origin,but fails to elaborate.And from domestic haven’t is the profound influence of the existentialism literature to Irvin’s thought exploration,but the origin is other psychotherapy schools has never been stressed,but in the long clinical practice can have a huge effect factors.Therefore,this part will take people thought and its influence on Irvin’s clues,to systematically comb Irvin’s existence psychological treatment,which has three sources,namely philosophy,psychology,literature origin origin.At the same time,it can place them to be researched in the background of the history of philosophy and psychology as a whole,in order to more fully grasp Irvin’s exist the ideological basis of psychotherapy theory.In the 3^rd part,this thesis will state Irvin D.Yalom’s existential psychotherapy on the core category of psychotherapy theory discussed,and clarify the interwoven relationship between them.Irvin by above thought background,combines the actual conditions of modern life,put forward the core category of the existence of psychotherapy theory,namely four "ultimate care" : death,free,lonely and meaningless.The four "ultimate concern",he argues,is rooted in the deepest parts of our life,when individuals are faced with any subject,will form the dynamic conflict,cause mental illness.What is needed to emphasize is that the four ultimate concern is not isolated.They has a very strong connecting with each other.They constitute the core category of psychotherapy theory.Irvin’s existential psychotherapy,as it were,is a kind of depth,he follows the patient to walk to the deepest part of the life,to touch the basic theme of the human ultimate concern,make the patient get the real sense.This section will examine its ideological origin of the above article and comb as the foundation,discuss and interpret the four themes and the mutual influence between them.In the 4^th part,this thesis will summarize the main technologies Irvin used in the psychotherapy practice.In clinical practice,these four topics rarely appear in front of the therapist,they often takes the form of camouflage to hide behind the defense.So Irvin,existential psychotherapist’s task is to guide the patient experience existence and to awake,to help them in the present moment to construct the world itself,to confront and overcome these problems.Any school’s therapist can let oneself have the quality of existentialism,thus the patients are treated as a complete sense of the people.Although Irvin constantly stressed that his skill is no skill,anything that can help people face their existence situation in every school’s approach can be used,we can still learn some factors from his treatment practice in favor of clinical effect.Therefore,this part will focus on the therapists who are guided by Irvin’s existential psychotherapy,how to guide the patients to do self-reflection,get a rational and clear understanding on the real life situation,and find out the factors that influence the patients’ behavior patterns,and help them to grow.In the last part,this thesis will have an overall evaluation of the main contributions and limitations of Irvin D.Yalom’s existential psychotherapy.Making the philosophy thought as the foundation,taking the healing power of literature into the psychological treatment,Irvin has made an important initiative and opened up a new perspective for psychological treatment.He performed with an open attitude,emphasis on "people" in the treatment of the key factors,borrowed from other genres of all contribute to the human situation.The method of "existence" embodies the trend of integration with other treatment theory.And,through books,Irvin has shared his feelings and experiences of psychotherapy,which has greatly influenced people’s understanding of psychological treatment.His emphasis on "relationship" and "here" in psychological treatment are more widely accepted by group therapy.At the same time,however,people can also see that Irvin D.Yalom’s existential psychotherapy requires the therapists to have high quality."I-you" relationship between subjective ideal color is thicker,and the problem that short-term treatment effect is not obvious also needs to be resolved.The writer believes that the existence of Irvin’s psychotherapy will be gradually developed in the "growth" and be admitted by the the circles of academia and treatment.