In the story, “Loves Executioner”, Yalom treats and old woman named “Thelma” that is overly obsessed with a man named Matthew, her former therapist from ten years ago. Yalom feeling though that he is drawn to the facets of her dilemma decides to do everything he can to empower Thelma move past the obsessions that had been wrecking havoc on her mental health. Although Thelma’s love obsession with her therapist, and her subjective experiences on life of what is preventing her from living in the present, Yalom attempts to treat a 70-year-old woman only to learn that being love executioner more complicated as he had anticipated.
First and foremost are Yalom and Thelma’s first meeting. In beginning, Yalom is intrigued with her love obsession with Matthew and couldn’t understand why her former therapist that was considerably younger would even want to have sexual relations Thelma as he describes her as, “a shabby old woman” (Yalom, 2000). The possibly of helping her move past her obsession to ease her suffering, were the reasons why Yalom ultimately decides to treat her. I personally thought that though Yalom had good intentions from the start to treat her, I think that he was thrown off by her demands as she tells him right from the start, “Eight years ago I had a love affair with my therapist. Since then he has never left my mind. I almost killed myself once and I believe I will succeed the next time. You are my last hope.” (Yalom, 2000 p. 18) A person that has been seeing therapists for over twenty years and be stuck on an obsession for ten, I thought, was rather intimidating and I personally think that Yalom did the best he could to remain optimistic. If I had a patient like Thelma that told me that I was her last hope and if...
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...py may have turned out different. This was defiantly one most confusing and intricate stories I have read in Yalom’s book and that the overall take home message I took from this was that, love and obsessions are hard to intellectualize and understand objectively as much as we would like to. Although what may be logically the best decision, love is not based on logic and that the only loves executioner cannot come from the suggestions of another person or therapist, but more from themselves and within. I think this quote states the story best, “Love and Psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. A good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection” (Yalom, 2000 p. 17)
Works Cited
Yalom, I. D. (2000). Love’s executioner:Other tales of psychotherapy. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
The love that a parent feels for a child is the most indescribable feeling in the world. Most parents would do anything and everything to protect their children, but not all parents are aware of the danger their child faces. In the short story "Killings," by Andre Dubus, a mother and father are faced with the tragic death of their son. Both parents, although both may not admit to it, believe that the murderer deserves the same consequences their son suffered. Matthew Fowler takes matters into his own hands, and along with his friend, Willis Trottier, kills Richard Strout. The death of Richard Strout should not be tried as a murder, but as a justifiable homicide. Matthew Fowler, the father of Frank Fowler, had every reason to reciprocate Strout's actions. A child should not be taken from a parent in the way that Frank was taken from his.
The last heroic couplet provides no hope and leaves only frustrating thoughts for the lover: "All wayes they try, successeless all they prove,/To cure the secret sore of lingering love". The speaker even argues that though Nature provides satisfaction for physical urges (e.g. hunger and thirst), Nature does not give Love the same satisfaction. The speaker describes a lover as a type of Sisyphus, enslaved in a vicious cycle of trying to accomplish the task (of fulfilling love's desires), only to have the problem roll back down and having to start over again.
Since we are kids we are taught the importance and meaning of love. Obviously, when we are kids we don’t realize such a big felling, until we grow up. I would say that love isn’t the feeling of intense hormonal urges; it is much more than that. It’s a real genuine feeling. The intense connection of true love cannot be broken because true love is unconditional and it has no boundaries. I have read many books about love, but in this case this book I would talk about is special because it makes us ask many questions about ourselves. Gabriel Garcia Marquez without writing it in the book Love in the Time of Cholera sets the question how long could we will be willing to wait for love? Since the first moment we open the book we can see it is going to be about love, so after reading some chapters we can ask ourselves about this question, and that obviously traps us. Love in the Time of Cholera is a novel that has a very strong meaning of love, some types of love presented in this books focuses on pure, and innocent, passionate, interested, divided love and among others, but the good thing about these kinds of love is that it gives the readers a teaching.
“Our hearts find no peace until they rest in you” (21). The return to God, the means of doing so, and the manners by which man is turned from him in the first place, are central themes in St. Augustine’s Confessions; a historical work serving as confession, praise, and examination of faith. Autobiographical in nature, Augustine’s work retells the story of his life and of his spiritual journey in retrospect, considering each event and its importance to the larger framework of his religious philosophy, a result of the merging of Neo-Platonist thought and Catholic theology. Through this fusion, Augustine is able to reconcile God and “evil,” make a distinction between the physical and spiritual realms, and lay out his views on how one can come to know and love God the truest sense possible; how one returns to him.
...nners of the lover and the Duke. Fearing the final loss of life, both murderers attempt to overpower their female subjects; they turn their objects of desire into beautiful objects which can never be lost, simultaneously attaining the role of masterful subject.
A developed relationship can be interpreted as one where the couple is interdependent, tolerant, and dedicated. Equity allows a relationship to efficiently develop in this manner. Judith Viorst illustrates a poem depicting a couple’s struggles and their sacrifices for the other in “True Love”. In many points of the poem, the couple is compromising for the other’s flaws in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts. “I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packers / Even though I am philosophically opposed to football” (Stanza 1) is an example of the wife forcing herself
Ismene remains firm and asks to be given the same punishment as her sister (212). Ismene’s love for her sister causes her to change her true ambitions and request a death penalty. Although this request is not fulfilled, Ismene demonstrates exactly how dangerous love can be if it is left uncontrolled.
Love is ironic. It can take you anywhere in the world unexpectedly, and turn you into a person that you never were. However, love is also two-faced, having both a negative and positive view. It is what drives you to the point where you do not know who you are anymore. In Shakespeare's story, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare perceives love with the personalities and actions of the characters, Romeo and Juliet. Both Romeo and Juliet are characterized as immature and irrational due to their "love." In addition, both characters fail to realize the reality of life and go towards the path of adolescence. Even though Romeo and Juliet are doomed at the end of the journey of "love," their demise was caused by their rash and silly decisions because their belief of everlasting love blinds them from reality and shapes their lives into an unstoppable time bomb.
In the third story of Loves Executioner: “The Fat lady” , Dr.Yalom decides to treat a twenty-seven year old overweight woman named, Betty. Though Dr. Yalom was reluctant to treat Betty at first due to her being obese, Dr. Yalom decides to put aside his counter-transference issues and views treating Betty as a way to improve his skills as a therapist. Not only does Dr.Yalom learn throughout treating Betty that there was more substance to her than he had initially anticipated, but he connects with betty while overcoming his counter-transference issues,helping Betty uncover the pathology of her depression and discovering her identity.
The novel's main character is Florentino Ariza, an obsessive young man who falls madly in love with a young girl named Fermina Daza. After a brief affair in which they see each other only in passing, Florentino gets rejected by Fermina. Florentino literally becomes sick and when his mother, Transito Ariza, finds his son in a pool of vomit, she reminds him that "the weak would never enter the kingdom of love, which is a harsh and ungenerous kingdom, and that women give themselves only to men of resolute spirit." After that time, Florentino dedicates his whole life to one day winning back his true love. But that day comes only after fifty-one years, nine months and four days later, and in the process, Florentino gets plagued by love, as if one gets plagued by cholera.
William Shakespeare 's 'Sonnet 73 ' highlights the continuous anxiety; of speaker the due to the inevitability of old age. Through various poetic techniques Shakespeare underlines that the deterioration of time is arbitrary; and it therefore naturally decays beauty and life. However there is a sense that he expresses love as a stronger force which overcomes the constant decline of youth and time. This is strongly represented by the use of seasonal imagery. Similarly, John Donne utilizes formal aspects in 'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning ' to convey the same view of the strong force of love. Unlike, Shakespeare 's constant reflection on deterioration; Donne presents arguments to reassure his lover that their love can overcome all aspects.
...ought that in some ways Yalom lost his patience, but he was on time constraints had more time to work with Thelma, therapy may have turned out different. This was defiantly one most confusing and intricate stories I have read in Yalom’s book and that the overall take home message I took from this was that, love and obsessions are hard to intellectualize and understand objectively as much as we would like to. Although what may be logically the best decision, love is not based on logic and that the only loves executioner cannot come from the suggestions of another person or therapist, but more from themselves and within. I think this quote states the story best, “Love and Psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. A good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection” (Yalom, 2000 p. 17)
Hate, a passionate dislike for something or someone, has taken part of every war in the world, whether it is a political or civil one. Macklemore, the rapper of the song “Same Love”, uses powerful lyrics and imagery in many of his songs. It is in “Same Love” that he raps about a social issue that the world has been dealing with since, some could argue, the beginning of time. In the song “Same Love” he uses his rap to speak to everyone who can make a change in this world. “Same Love” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis bring awareness to the unjust issue of homophobia by giving people the information they need to obtain a voice and stand up for humans who have had their rights stolen.
“A Love like that was a serious illness, an illness form which you can never entirely recover” said Charles Bukowski ,a German born poet. Love can exist in many forms; however, there is one manifestation of love that seems to have fascinated humanity since the dawn of history. This is the love that two people share when they “fall in love”- the love that is now more frequently described as passionate or romantic love. In this sense, love has a special place in human affair. It has always been a universal preoccupation. It may be that lovers’ madness is part of the human condition. The connection between love and states of illness and madness has existed since antiquity. In fact, love is an illness that leads to many psychological and physical disorders.
In Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s Faust (Part One) as well as in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, love plays a vital role. Love is the reason that an individual strays from the path to enlightenment and begins to act in strange, unpredictable ways. It decreases an individual’s ability to reason and takes away any incentive he might have to seek enlightenment. Since love is based on faith, it goes against the ideals of enlightenment which stress individual thinking. Love brings about a sense of fulfillment, which also works against the ideals of enlightenment which advocate a constant struggle within the individual to find truth or reach a higher plain of thought. In the Age of Enlightenment, love is a temptation man must overcome to reach enlightenment.