I've just read Irvin Yalom's latest book on the topic of overcoming the terror of death. It connected very well with two other books that I read just before this: "Heideigger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates", and "Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar". Common to these three books is the background on the journey of philosophers who have sought answers to the big questions about life.
Having experienced bouts of death anxiety before, the book did make sense to me in some of its recommendations in overcoming such anxiety. What stood out for me though was Yalom's definition of ultimate concerns, he wrote "in my view, four ultimate concerns are germane to the practice of therapy: death, isolation, meaning in life, and freedom." As I think about the approach of Narrative Therapy which I have adopted for my work, there is indeed great similarity with Yalom's existential psychotherapy. Narrative therapy being social constructionist in nature does place social connection as being significant in therapy, thus the concern of isolation is addressed by efforts to reconnect clients to their community. Helping clients re-discover their personal agency in life basically tackles the issue of finding meaning in life and liberates them to take action. The key difference is perhaps Yalom's belief that death is at the core of client's problems.
