Bestselling writer and psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom puts himself on
the couch in a lapidary memoir
Irvin D. Yalom has made a career of investigating the lives of others.
In this profound memoir, he turns his writing and his therapeutic eye on
himself. He opens his story with a nightmare: He is twelve, and is
riding his bike past the home of an acne-scarred girl. Like every
morning, he calls out, hoping to befriend her, "Hello Measles!" But in
his dream, the girl's father makes Yalom understand that his daily
greeting had hurt her. For Yalom, this was the birth of empathy; he
would not forget the lesson. As Becoming Myself unfolds, we see the
birth of the insightful thinker whose books have been a beacon to so
many. This is not simply a man's life story, Yalom's reflections on his
life and development are an invitation for us to reflect on the origins
of our own selves and the meanings of our lives.