Movie Review: "Her"

“I think anybody who falls in love is a freak. 

It's a crazy thing to do. 

It's kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.” 

― Amy, Her (2013)

Throughout our entire short lifetime of watching movies or reading literature or listening to music, we will always find that one film or book or song that struck a chord so deep inside us, that it resonates profoundly through our entire being, changing our perspectives, and ultimately, changes us in its entirety. One such film that manages to do so (to me at least), is Spike Jones' magnum opus from 2013, "Her". It is a film that manages to do so much in such short time, it offers so much, it is moving, and it is wise. 

In this poignant post-modern two hour science-fiction-romance movie, it tells a story, set in some not-so-distant future, of an introverted writer, who worked at a company that helps people who are unwilling to write personal letters themselves compose heartfelt and intimate letters towards their beloved others. Living a lonely life ever since his breakup with his childhood romance/wife, Theodore, the protagonist, decided to buy a newly designed talking operating system that is designed with artificial intelligence, making the OS able to talk and function like a "human-being", in order to bear with the loneliness while having a companion. 

After deciding to give the OS a female voice, and naming it Samantha in the process, Samantha surprises him by displaying high levels of intellect, showing significant sophistication in "her" computer processing levels, while demonstrating extraordinary capabilities in psychological growth through learning. And after a certain amount of closeness between the two, Theodore "naturally" falls in love with Samantha, and vice versa. Thus the story goes on. But first, let us suspend our skepticism towards the possibility and the ethical issues of developing AI in the near future, and instead consider the questions postulated below:

"Is Samantha a human?" Some might consider yes, since she displayed a high level of consciousness, even to the point of being able to discuss philosophical questions such as love and life, and she is shown in the film for being able to demonstrate empathy, and emotions, all of which are requirements in order to make us human. Samantha is creative, as shown in several scenes where she is able to compose musical compositions; Samantha is able to look at the world digitally through a camera lens; she is able to plan ahead of problems for Theodore, and solve them logically and deductively; she displayed a sophisticated control over language, while displaying a vast amount of intellect; and most importantly, she can learn, like humans, through experience. All of these are important criteria put forward by cognitive sciences and human psychology that which makes us human, and Samantha can do it at a significantly higher level, as she has constant access to the internet, making her and her kin almost omnipotent and omniscient!

But still, is she human? Because what differentiates her the most from other humans is that she lacked a body. And if English philosopher, John Locke, was right in that humans are experiential creatures that learn primarily through the shaping of external sensations and reflections, then Samantha cannot be considered a human being, because the lack of a body results in the lack of material experience. How can Samantha even determine what she perceive and feel is real if she lacked the perceptive organs that we humans have? One might argue that she has a camera for her eyes, but still, a camera doesn't equal to a human eye, as we all might already acknowledged, the eye is a far more complicated organ than a camera, and to this day, no scientist managed to replicate a human eye with its sophisticated neural networks. And if one argues that at least Samantha has human emotions, well, if humans are already confused by the question of whether our perceptions and emotions are "real", imagine how hard it would be to determine whether an AI can really have both of these! For all we know, they could just be written lines of programming codes, making Samantha believe and behave as if she has these, while she has none in reality! If Descartes was right, we humans are "ghosts in the machine", souls stuck in a body; but for Samantha, she is a ghost, but wandering without an anchor, floating endlessly in a virtual reality in the form of a code.  

But, ultimately, does these make her less "human"? 

The film ponders with such questions, and offers no answers simply by leaving the speculation up to the viewers' intentions. This is a wise move, because by answering the questions in a simplistic way, it risks becoming dogmatic and deterministic in its views. And despite these philosophical questions, the film is essentially an exposition of love, a love that crosses boundaries. Forget about interracial, transsexual or homosexual love, this is a love story between man and machine. It is a love that is no less passionate than that of a love between humans. It contains jealousy, confusion, countless hypothesizing on how the other half feels etc. And if you are wondering how they have sex, well the film does catch up with that. 

But the most intriguing aspect is this: if Samantha is an AI program that is only programmed in a way to make her appear feminine to a male user, it is essentially sexless. And this is poignant, because if humans can fall in love with an essentially sexless program, then love is something that is limitless, and can cater to all forms of love, whether it be LGBT love, interracial love etc. Why head to conflicts over what sexuality others have, when we can just let them be on their own business? This is a statement that many disagree with, but shouldn't a thing as sacred as love between individuals be out of the interference of culture or religion? And this is what the film continuously explored, as it constantly shows what matters most is the bond and relationship between people (even when the term "people" includes robots). 

And the beauty of this film is that it also discusses the theme of alienation and isolation while living in a society that is so modern, every aspect of our lives are digitalized. Take for example the opening scene, whereby row after row of Theodore's coworker sit in front of their computers in their office cubicles, narrating out the content of heartwarming letters for total strangers on the other side of the globe. The warmth is spewed out from their mouths, but none of it retains in the letters, it loses its human touch. Take another scene for example: everyone was walking on the streets, or sitting in the subways, but with an earpiece placed deep into their ears, listening to some OS droning on about unread emails, and latest news, and nobody was talking to each other anymore. Doesn't these seem familiar in our contemporary society? Everything is so categorized, so automated, nothing is humane. It may seem at first glance to be a Utopian society where everything is advanced, but in its deepest core, it is Dystopian.

At the core of this movie is the phenomenon of the unbreachable gap between us humans. The characters may seem happy when surrounded by friends or families, they may converse normally, laugh, have fun, but deep down they are lonely. We may never know how the other half is feeling even when they are our most beloved ones. How many people is she conversing with behind my back? What are they thinking? Is this love real, or is it artificial? Theodore is constantly assaulted by all these questions everyday at every moment. Because insanity is lonely, and love is insanity. Deep down, they are all lonely souls. 

And this is a lonely movie, filled with heartbreak, staccato bursts of beautiful soundtracks, masterful acting, occasional humor, dirty jokes, and transcending sexual experiences. It explores not only what it means to be human, but also a man's journey to discover his sexuality, and the ecstatic experience of love. Some may deem this movie dark, and prescient of a foreshadowed future.

But there is always hope, and hope is all we have. 

Organ Donation Drive: Do you believe that there are ANGELS in this world? (Special Article)

Let us set aside our quarrels and our fixations in the world, and contemplate these three questions, which I proposed as below:

1. "If you are given a chance, or let's say given a wish from an Angel, what would you wish for this society and for this world?"

2. "Name me three most important factors that could possibly contribute to your wish."

3. "Do you think it is possible that even without all the three factors you had mentioned just now, with just a kind heart, you could change this world?"

Hi everyone, my name is Hor Mu Yi. These are the three core questions I had created and asked in the interview which I had conducted specifically for our new video. If you haven't watch it, what are you waiting for, haha! :P The link is provided below:

To speak in honest terms and disclose myself as truthfully as possible, if someone came up upon me and asked me those three exact questions, I would definitely answer "No way!" to the third question. And so, I hypothesized that people would react in exactly the same way as I would. Because to say the truth, could anyone (including me) before watching this video imagine how we could change the world for the better with only our kind heart, without any external factors, such as money etc. ?

Well, there is an answer, actually, and we could perform this regardless if we are short of money etc. And although the answer is much disputed by many, and deemed as unorthodox by a large portion of the society, it is nevertheless a legit and very helpful contribution that we could make towards those desperately in need. The answer is (drum rolls please), Organ Donation! In fact, as statistics estimate, an organ donor would be able to save up to eight lives and improve as much as fifty lives through an act as simple as donating your organs ( 2 lungs, 2 kidneys, 1 heart, 1 liver, 1 pancreas, 1 intestines) and your tissues. What is most crucial is that almost everyone can become an organ donor despite your age, your ethnicity, or your gender.

One could easily search all the available facts about organ donation with a simple click on the internet, and the results will return within 30 seconds. And in fact, many knew about organ donation before I even revealed the answer by the end of this video. However, it is an answer that most prefer not to think about (for reasons stated below), and in the big reveal by the end of the video, most didn't even think about the possibility of such an answer. Of course, this is not to say that the only way to help others is through organ donation, as there are many ways one can contribute to society, and if any of you readers could think of such an alternative, feel free to leave your comments below. :)

But surprisingly, for the third question I received a lot of positive responses for my third question, such as: "yes", "it is possible", and "I believe it". This is definitely a moving experience, and I learnt a lot from these interviewees. For example, one interviewee taught me that it only requires a kind heart to work for a non-governmental organization or to volunteer for charity work. Some of them even enlightened me with the thought that doing one single good deed could spread goodness and it will ripple and spread out towards others like a chain reaction. I'm actually delighted to be proven wrong of my negative presumptions! Many people do believe that with small acts, one could bring big impacts to this world. Positive thinking man! :D

If small acts bring big impacts, then wouldn't a big act (such as organ donation) bring about bigger impacts? It all essentially boil down to this simple, but elegant motto: "Give Big! Get Big!"

But as it appears, the awareness towards the act of organ donation is in fact one of the lowest in our country, Malaysia. There are many myths and misleading thoughts that were spread around throughout our society, and some of which are really worth the time to discuss in full, as these myths actually had a big influence on our perception towards the act of organ donation.




Myth no.1: If I were to sign up as an organ donor, the doctor will not try their best to save me, as they will hope to acquire my organs so that they can give it to others.

Answer no.1: In actuality, the doctors would still try their best to save you. That's their job, and that's their code of ethics. In fact, they would do even more tests to ensure the organ donors' living status before they declare their death and move on to donate the dead's organs to those in crucial need.

Myth no.2 : My religion does not allowed me to become an organ donor.

Answer no.2: Well, actually most of the major religions actually support the idea of organ donation. This is because major religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, promote the idea of compassion, responsibility, and kindness. These are virtues that they absolutely adhere to. And so, we suggest those who are unsure about whether or not they wanted to donate their organs to inquire more fully about their respective religions. :)

Myth no.3: My parents would definitely disagree with me becoming an organ donor.

Answer no.3: This is actually a very legit concern, as there are many parents who are afraid of such an act, maybe because they seldom approach such a topic, and there are many who regard organ donation as a morbid act. So, make sure you collect enough information, and peacefully discuss this issue with your parents, while slowly persuading them that this is an act of kindness, and that such an act can potentially help many others in desperate need. (Perhaps you can show them our video? :D)

So, don't be afraid, be an organ donor, and raise awareness to others so that they know more about such a campaign. Because there's an angel inside all of us, and YOU or I, could be the angel to this world! :)

Book Review: "Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm than Good?"

Paradigm shift, that's what this angsty and de-constructionist book succeeds in inducing in me --- a big shift in my own personal perspective towards one of the most controversial of medical profession in our contemporary society --- psychiatry.

Throughout the reading process, which takes about three days, there was a constant running scene of George Carlin's comedy gold that keeps on reliving at the back of my mind. In one of his finest stand-ups, he discussed about the rampant usage of euphemistic language throughout the professional communities, "We have no more stupid people, everybody has a learning disorder. Or he's minimally exceptional. How would you like to be told that about your child? 'He's minimally exceptional.' 'Ohhh, thank God for that!'"

George Carlin: The grandmaster of black comedy,
playing with language since he was in a foetus.

And although George Carlin exaggerates a great deal for comedic purposes, there is an element of truth in it, as there is a subtle but malevolent mechanism that is involved here, namely that of our blatant medicalization of almost everything that is out of the norm and appears as an outlier, and this medicalization blurs the boundaries between normality and abnormality. This is crucial, as there is no clear cut distinction between them, and to purport a categorical distinctive criteria between the two is allegorical to drawing a fine line where there is no fine line.

This tendency to medicalize and categorize our so called mental illnesses reaches its peak when the psychiatric association -- the APA -- constructed the influential DSM (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), and this manual is currently in the 5th edition. Many of the disorders listed in these manuals were considered to enter into this manual through, wait for it, voting?! And the criteria is often times constructed equally through voting, and often times single-handedly written by a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL! Now that, my dear friends, is hubristic. We know so little about the true nature of mental disorders (some may even consider them as non-existent, and are instead created cultural concepts), but we carry on believing in this faulty system precisely because there is no alternatives that are currently available.

Take for example one of the "mental disorders" that are currently listed in the latest version of the DSM (DSM-V):
Prolonged grief disorder: Diagnosed when there is a loss of a significant other which causes depressive symptoms and significant distress that result in impaired everyday functioning, after the death of the person for at least six months. (Indeed, the arbitrary criteria of six months is entirely questionable. Why can't it be five months, or one year, or two years? Why six months? There are no studies to support it, let alone be included in the "Bible" of psychiatry.)

Now, many will argue that this is valid because often times grief can cripple a person emotionally and psychologically. But the counterargument is this: A sense of distress is a very normal emotional response, and often times, the sense of loss can extend beyond years. To propose a biomedical model to explain it disrupts our very human experience, because instead of looking at this phenomenon humanistically, we are objectifying and reducing the issue into the problems in our brains (e.g. there is a lack of certain neurotransmitters, or parts of our brains are malfunctioning, which studies have often showed that there is no clear causal relations in the first place). Instead of medicalizing it, which makes the pharmaceutical companies gain a huge amount of profit, and passing out medicines that are no better than placebos, we should help these people through meaningful human connections, and helping them out when they need it. There are many implications to this disorder, as with many other controversial disorders, such as the "premenstrual dysphoric disorder" (PMDD), as these disorders are essentially a medicalization of a fairly human response, and to diagnose them in a clinical setting means to give out pharmaceutical medicines such as antidepressants that may bring about serious side effects.

There is another case that is written in the book that still give me the chills whenever I think about it. In the Western countries, there is a big pharmaceutical company named Eli Lily. What they did was they "created" a new medication for PMDD to "help" women who suffered under unstable emotional bouts two weeks before menstruation. The medicine is named "Sarafem", and they are pink pills, and the name is derived from the Hebrew word 'angel'. Now, the scary part is that the chemical ingredients of Sarafem is essentially the same with Prozac, an antidepressant, which has no part to do here because PMDD is not a depressive disorder! This is ingenious because they repackaged Prozac into a female wonder-drug, by using subliminal messages such as the pink packaging or the name itself that is imbued with stereotypic female overtones. And the worst part is, nobody knew about it!

Prozac's chemical molecules
Fluoxetine: an antidepressant of the SSRI class.

Sarafem's chemical molecules
Also...... Fluoxetine

French philosopher, Michel Foucalt, once famously (or infamously) said that madness has always existed, but madmen hasn't. Because madmen is a culturally evolved concept that is put in place in order for people with higher powers to confine them and restrict them so as not to destroy the entire structure of society into chaos. Whether that is true or not is still to be questioned. But what is true is that the psychiatric industry still has a long way to go, whether ethically or practically, as there are still many questionable flaws that are embedded in its very fabrics.

Michel Foucalt: fabulous, important,
and downright inscrutable and indecipherable.

Reading this book is like reading "Alice in Wonderland". It brings you to a place where things may appear bizarre and out-of-hand at first glance, but will soon take on a reality so startling, so unsettling, and so disturbing that it shatters your very beliefs, and lead us to question everything that we know about the psychiatric community ("To be ethical, or to profit, that is the question!") The book listed out so many other deceptions and faults of the psychiatric community, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, that it makes one shiver to think about how naive we once were to hail it as an advancing science, when it is actually moving nowhere in its inertia. It is a rabbit hole where crimes such as shadowy economic links between psychiatry and pharmacy, conjured research trial results, serious side effects of drugs, drugs that are no better than placebos, are kept silently at the vault of their secrets. But the vault is leaking.

It is a book that is rather dry and is honestly boring, and its implications are rather biased (the author is a psychotherapist, but in the book, nowhere is it to be found that psychotherapy is equally scrutinized with a critical lens, and the book neglected many other mental diseases, such as schizophrenia, or bipolar disorders). I am generally skeptical of skeptics (hah, the irony!), but this one got me sold. And although I do not enjoy it, not because it was dry (although there is an element of that), but because the truth listed inside is disturbing (as truths often are), it is an important and honest polemical work. And it not only deserves to be read widely, it demands to be.

Nothing better to end a long article than an Obama picture.

There are other books that offered a critical re-evaluation of psychiatry as a whole, that are written with a much more interesting (or "entertaining" if that is the word for it) prose, such as:
(1) Tom Burns: The Necessary Shadow
(2) Ben Goldacre: Bad Science
(3) Ben Goldacre: Bad Pharma
(4) Christine Montross: Falling into the Fire
(I absolutely recommend Ben Goldacre's two books as they are very very good, with enough anecdotes that makes the best black comedy material.)

Movie Review: "The Fault in our Stars"

I remember a time when I, as a socially awkward teenager, started to emerge from the shell of my shyness, rebel against my parents, had the most crazy and yet fun times with my high school peers, and engage in a multitude of activities in my school so as to slowly gain a place and status in the social setting of my school. Viewing these in hindsight after being in a university for two and a half years, I miss those times, those awkward times where we pursue for relationships relentlessly, where we have the most carefree times of our lives, where our body image concerns us the most, where our hormonal fluctuations induce us sometimes into perma-rage towards our family members and friends. Being a teenager is fun, it is exciting, it is filled with exploration towards the unknown, and if developmental psychologist Erik Erikson is right, it is a time where we find our true identities.

But then, I remember my cousin. A cousin who was barely two months younger than me has been diagnosed with cancer. A diabolical disease that slowly consumes my living cousin into a lifeless corpse. It was painful to watch, it was devastating. To slowly look at a person, previously so full with life, filled with endless possibilities, who was so curious about the future, slowly decay and immobilized and ultimately confined to a bed was as horrible an event one can possibly imagine. One can only deal with so much despair until one starts to question the futility of life if suffering is such an inevitable circumstance in our meager lives. But he was an optimistic fellow, his family embraced Christianity, and together they endured the suffering through the guidance of the words of Christ, of the pastor, and of God. And in the end, he passed away, after years of suffering, into a state of eternal slumber. He died.

There is a disparity here that was irreconcilable. Two individuals of the same age, filled with equal possibilities, faced different fates. Their roads diverged. His was a cruel road, and although I do not wish to travel the road that he did, I do wish sincerely to have accompanied him farther down, to watch him grow, to watch him fly. Instead, he lies in a coffin, and I'm here typing. The scar he left behind is barely visible now that many years have passed since his death, but it is a scar that I am willing to take on for the rest of my life.

"The Fault in our Stars" (which was a film adapted from John Green's book with the same title) proposed an essentially similar story, a story of courage, a story of love, and a story that teaches us that one's attitude while facing a terminal illness is sometimes all that the patient has in his/her arsenal. But there is a catch, it views this story from the standpoint of the cancer patient itself. In that, the book and the film is ultimately a phenomenological study of how the cancer patient themselves lived through such a harrowing experience.

There cannot be a more obvious contradiction between Hazel, the female protagonist, and Augustus ("Gus" from here on for simplicity), the male protagonist. Hazel is a girl who seemingly has gotten everything in her life straightened out ever since she received her "death sentence" (the diagnosis). She is a realist. She sees death as inevitable, an oblivion that cannot be escaped from. She sees no value in trying to leave a significant trace behind while she is still alive.

Then there is Gus, the charming boy who has a happy-go-lucky attitude towards life even though he survived through a osteosarcoma (bone cancer) attack that robs him of his leg. Unlike Hazel, he is a romanticist. He likes using metaphors to explain everything (they are super pretentious). He held a romantic view on life itself. And although he holds Hazel's "rationality" and "smartness" in high esteem, I do believe that he is the one that has the most constancy with regards to his outlooks on life. In fact, subconsciously he may be the anchor that held Hazel down, and bring a sense of meaning and purpose to Hazel's life, which will profoundly change her life from hereon. He is realistically optimistic, in the sense that he realizes his flaws, his vulnerabilities, and his weaknesses, and yet hold on to a cheerful outlook even in the bleakest of times.

Yet, despite these seemingly wide set of differences, they actually have much in common. They are non-conformists. They are smart, and they are quirky and seemingly have a different kind of aura that cloaks them, making them appear much more different than any other teenagers. I believe this is inevitable, and they must be different from other people of their age. Because they have battled the demons of disease while others are still pondering whether Nike or Adidas is better; because they have stared the abyss of mortality in the eye while others are hanging out in shopping malls. This is what sets them apart from other kids, and this is what the film wanted to explore.

But what intrigues me the most is not what is explicitly shown in front of me on the screen. The importance of this work, the theme of the movie lies not what is being shown or said; rather, it lies behind what is not being said. There is a tension and a subtle flow of emotions that paints, pervades, and underlies each and every scene and dialogue in between the characters. In one scene, we can see Hazel looking at Gus while Gus is looking at the other direction, and lowers her head and avoided Gus shyly when he returns his gaze towards Hazel lovingly. All the delicacy, the tenderness, and the intimacy Hazel held towards Gus (and vice versa) culminates in that one gaze, and although no dialogue is exchanged between the two in that scene, there is nothing else that needs to be said. Take another scene for example, in that scene, Hazel is talking with her parents, and one might start getting suspicious of a certain ambiguity in their conversations. It seems as if they are circumventing around a topic that they are clearly avoiding, namely that of death itself, or more precisely, the fear of death itself.

There are many other factors that made this movie stand out so much among this years numerous films, namely John Green's or the director's smart decision to make the characters unique and memorable while dispensing them from the horrors of cardboard characterizations and cliched teenager stereotypes. The editing is really good, and the soundtrack is pure eargasm to listen to. But one of my favorite reasons (my most biased reason) is that I personally admire Shailene Woodley greatly ever since I saw her previous works in the equally amazing films "The Descendants" and "The Spectacular Now". "The Spectacular Now", "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" are smart coming-of-age films that depict our adolescent years with clarity and a touch of painful honesty that is tinged in nostalgia. It is these films that dared to break through the swamp of cliche "High School Musical" genre stagnation.

Watch it! It's worth it!

Watch it!!!!!

Bask in all the glories of Shailene Woodley-ness

I encourage you to go and watch this film, as it is a film that depicts the human life at its most painful and heartbreaking, yet it provides profound hope that even though our mortality is the one fact with which we have to bear with, we can control how we confront it. Everything essentially distills into this one point: we have the choice, and it is up to us to make that choice, since no one else can make it. So whether you face it courageously, despairingly, with or without the support of loved ones, one must remember this:

The fault is never in our stars, it is in us. :)

Book Review: "Love's Executioner (and Other Tales of Psychotherapy)"

"I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy -- I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon introspection. I hate to be love's executioner."

The book

With these words in the first paragraph, Dr. Irvin D. Yalom opens up his searing examination of the psychotherapeutic process in his ten case studies, provided in detail and clarity throughout his book. Perhaps because it was his honesty in accounting for his own faults during his therapy sessions. Perhaps because it was his lucidity in writing his case studies and his own thought processes during the therapy sessions. But to account my fascination and admiration for his book through these singular reasons cannot do justice to the enlightenment and awakening experience that Yalom's book brought forth to me. What cannot be denied however was that through his examinations of his clientele and how they achieve success (or encounter failures) after their psychotherapies, Yalom was also simultaneously analyzing his own self, his identity as a psychotherapist, and the importance of his occupation. Indeed, the title was self-referential, and throughout the pages and lines of this book, he was an omnipresent guide, a background voice of self-awareness in the midst of chaos in the therapeutic sessions.

The author: Dr. Irvin D. Yalom

Written when he was in his fifties and published in 1989, the book remains an influential and relevant account of the importance of psychotherapy in our tumultuous times, where the medicalization of psychological distress and pseudo-alternative treatments ran abundant. Ever since Sigmund Freud introduced psychoanalysis as a form of "talking cure" to relieve patients of neuroses (and in some instances, psychoses), psychotherapy metamorphosed into a form of treatment that patients increasingly sought after in their times of crises. Yet at the same time, the thought of revealing the innermost recesses of our psyche, the fears and obsessions and secret thoughts, to another person who has a parent-like presence, albeit in anonymity, is very much frightening, and as a result, many view psychotherapy as an intrusion towards their mental life and thus regard it with disdain and distrust.

Lying on the couch

But what Yalom achieves in his book is very much the opposite, in a fashion much like Freud and Breuer's influential case study, "Studies on Hysteria", and Oliver Sacks' neurological case studies, he elucidates and provides in clear light how psychotherapy is like in real life. His psychotherapy approach is, however, very much different from other modern mainstream psychotherapies, such as psychoanalysis, interpersonal psychotherapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). His is an approach of psychotherapy that is heavily influenced by existential philosophies, which he termed "existential psychotherapy". But what is even more important is that he never sought to construct a clear-cut approach whereby there is a rigid construction on how therapy should run, and his approach is very pragmatic in which he integrates all forms of approaches (psychoanalytic dream interpretations, CBT's Socratic dialogue, interpersonal psychotherapy's emphasis on societal relationships) to form his own therapy sessions.

To be or not to be, that is the question!

Existential therapy is unique in that it incorporates a plethora of existential issues into the therapeutic sessions and analyzes them with the patients. Yalom drew heavy influence from existential philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Yalom's favorite, Friedrich Nietzsche. And from these philosophers, he distilled their lessons and theories into four main themes (death, freedom, meaning, isolation) which we will surely encounter in our lives, and which if left unresolved, will further progress to form a multitude of psychological distresses that incapacitate our everyday functioning. (There are other existential psychotherapists such as Viktor Frankl, Rollo May, Emmy Van Deurzen etc. and they have each written their own books on their subjects, each with differing views on the therapy itself. Do search for them if you are interested on the subject. :D)

Viktor Frankl

Emmy Van Deurzen

Rollo May

It is normal for us to encounter such dilemmas in our life, such as our anxiety towards death (or even our denial of death), our quest to find meaning in our lives, our feelings of existential isolation (even when we are surrounded by other, as there is an unbreachable gap between one another), and our feelings of anxiety when faced with the responsibility and with our inherent freedom to make choices in life. As the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, once said, "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." And so it is, as the responsibility to change, and the freedom to acquire a sense of purpose in this inherently meaningless cosmos lies upon our shoulders, and the burden it gives is often times more greater than the joy it brings.

Say what?!

But as this book optimistically illustrates again and again, we can change, we can create our own meaning of the world, and we can overcome these obstacles. Because we simply can, if we will it, and if we pursue it.




(We recommend this book not only to those who are interested in psychotherapy, but also to all others who just wanted a good book to read, as there is surely something which may be beneficial to you. I encourage you guys to purchase the Basic Books edition, as it additionally includes an author's afterword on how he views his writing 25 years after the first publication.)

Other books on this subject:
1. Irvin D. Yalom. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. Basic Books.
2. Emmy Van Deurzen. (2012). Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice. Sage Pub.
3. Rollo May. (2012). The Discovery of Being: Writings in Existential Psychology. W. W. Norton Co.
4. Viktor E. Frankl. (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.
5. Rollo May. (2007). Love and Will. W. W. Norton Co.