The Schopenhauer Cure (55 page)

Read The Schopenhauer Cure Online

Authors: Irvin Yalom

Tags: #Fiction, #General

"Finale."

"I am deeply glad to see...": Magee, Philosophy of

Schopenhauer, p. 25.

"This man who lived among us a lifetime...": Karl

Pisa, Schopenhauer (Berlin: Paul Neff Verlag, 1977), p. 386

"Mankind has learned...": Schopenhauer, Manuscript

Remains, vol. 4, p.328, "Spicegia," SS 122.

Acknowledgments

This book has had a long gestation and I am indebted to

many who helped along the way. To editors who assisted

me in this odd amalgam of fiction, psychobiography and

psychotherapy pedagogy: Marjorie Braman (a tower of

support and guidance at HarperCollins), Kent Carroll, and

my extraordinary in-house editors--my son, Ben, and my

wife, Marilyn. To many friends and colleagues who read

parts or all of the manuscript and offered suggestions: Van

and Margaret Harvey, Walter Sokel, Ruthellen Josselson,

Carolyn Zaroff, Murray Bilmes, Julius Kaplan, Scott

Wood, Herb Kotz, Roger Walsh, Saul Spiro, Jean Rose,

Helen Blau, David Spiegel. To my support group of fellow

therapists who, throughout this project, offered unwavering

friendship and sustenance. To my amazing and

multitalented agent, Sandy Dijkstra, who among other

contributions suggested the title (as she did for my

preceding book, The Gift of Therapy ). To my research

assistant, Geri Doran.

Much of the Schopenhauer correspondence that

exists either remains untranslated or has been clumsily

rendered into English. I am indebted to my German

research assistants, Markus Buergin and Felix Reuter, for

their translation services and their prodigious library

research. Walter Sokel offered exceptional intellectual

guidance and helped translate many of the Schopenhauer

epigrams preceding each chapter into English that more

reflects Schopenhauer's powerful and lucid prose.

In this work, as in all others, my wife, Marilyn,

served as a pillar of support and love.

Many fine books guided me in my writing. By far, I

am most heavily indebted to Rudiger Safranski's

magnificent biography, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of

Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 1989) and grateful to him for his generous consultation in our long

conversation in a Berlin cafe. The idea of bibliotherapy--

curing oneself through reading the entire corpus of

philosophy--comes from Bryan Magee's excellent

book, Confessions of a Philosopher (New York: Modern

Library, 1999). Other works that informed me were Bryan

Magee's The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1983; revised 1997; John E.

Atwell's Schopenhauer: The Human Character

(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990); Christopher

Janeway's Schopenhauer (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univ.

Press, 1994); Ben-Ami Scharfstein's The Philosophers:

Their Lives and the Nature of their Thought (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1989); Patrick

Gardiner's Schopenhauer (Saint Augustine's Press, 1997); Edgar Saltus's The Philosophy of Disenchantment (New

York: Peter Eckler Publishing Co., 1885); Christopher

Janeway's The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer

(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999);

Michael Tanner's Schopenhauer (New York: Routledge,

1999); Frederick Copleston's Arthur Schopenhauer:

Philosopher of Pessimism (Andover, UK: Chapel River

Press, 1946); Alain de Botton's The Consolations of

Philosophy (New York: Vintage, 2001); Peter

Raabe's Philosophical Counseling (Westport, Conn.:

Praeger); Shlomit C. Schuster's Philosophy Practice: An

Alternative to Counseling and Psychotherapy (Westport,

Conn.: Praeger, 1999); Lou Marinoff's Plato Not Prozac

(New York: HarperCollins, 1999); Pierre Hadot and Arnold

I. Davidson, eds., Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual

Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Michael Chase,

trans., New Haven: Blackwell, 1995); Martha

Nussbaum's The Therapy of Desire (Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton Univ. Press, 1994); Alex Howard's Philosophy

for Counseling and Psychotherapy: Pythagoras to

Postmodernism (London: Macmillan, 2000).

About the Author

IRVIN D. YALOM is the bestselling author of Love's

Executioner, Momma and the Meaning of Life, and The Gift of Therapy, as well as several classic textbooks on

psychotherapy, including the monumental work that has

long been the standard text in the field, The Theory and

Practice of Group Psychotherapy.

www.yalom.com

Don't miss the next book by your favorite author. Sign up

now for AuthorTracker by visiting

www.AuthorTracker.com.

Also by Irvin D. Yalom

Lying on the Couch

When Nietzsche Wept

The Gift of Therapy

Momma and the Meaning of Life

Love's Executioner

Every Day Gets a Little Closer

The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Existential Psychotherapy

Inpatient Group Psychotherapy

The Yalom Reader

Encounter Groups: First Facts

(with Morton Lieberman and Matt Miles)

Credits

Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich

Jacket illustration by Ms. Leander

Reeves/
www.kittycave.net

COPYRIGHT

THE SCHOPENHAUER CURE.Copyright (c) 2005 by Irvin D.

Yalom. All rights reserved under International and Pan—

American Copyright Conventions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yalom, Irvin.

The Schopenhauer cure: a novel / Irvin D. Yalom.--1st

ed. p. cm.

ISBN 0-06-621441-6

FIRST EDITION

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Other books

The House of Writers by M.J. Nicholls
Charming, Volume 2 by Jack Heckel
A History of Korea by Jinwung Kim
Adrienne Basso by Bride of a Scottish Warrior
Ignition by Riley Clifford
Valhalla Wolf by Constantine De Bohon
Buchanan's Pride by Pamela Toth
Lightning by Danielle Steel
A WILDer Kind of Love by Angel Payne
Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong