Nakedness of love

I do not prefer treating patients who are in love. That may be because of envy, as I also long to be captivated by someone. Or perhaps because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. At a time when the skilled therapist fights darkness and searches for light, romantic love is built on mystery and collapses when explored. One of the great paradoxes in this life is that self-awareness generates anxiety. The act of integration comes to eliminate anxiety completely, by getting rid of self-awareness. The person who falls in love and enters a happy state of integration does not contemplate himself because his questioning ego (and the anxiety associated with loneliness) dissolves into the image of "we." Thus, one separates from their anxiety, but loses themselves. ***Here, the renowned psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom narrates ten stories from real psychotherapy sessions, all revolving around the pain of existence, and with remarkable skill, he exposes what dwells deep within those stories.