Stories of brief psychotherapies that guide us through the daily struggle to give meaning to life, with humor, skill, and deep humanity.

We are all creatures of a day. With these words, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius reminds himself of the fleeting nature of life. From this, 84-year-old Irvin Yalom draws the title of his new book with psychotherapeutic stories and invites us to live with him the struggle, the pain, and the magic of life and psychotherapy. The wisdom of the elderly therapist is evident in the immediacy with which he approaches the person who comes to his office, in his crucial comments, and in his comfort in sharing his personal anxieties if such a thing can help the patient. As the cycle of his life closes, Yalom's receptiveness increases. With humility and honesty, he admits that he continues to be surprised, to learn from his patients, and to admire their ability to utilize in their own unique way the healing components of the psychotherapeutic encounter.

In these pages, we will meet a nurse, angry and resigned to misery, without an outlet, who lost her son to the world of drugs and crime, yet must comfort her privileged patients in their own pain; a successful businessman who, in the aftermath of a suicide, feels desperate in the face of the gaps and secrets that taint every relationship; a novice psychotherapist whose study of the human condition erodes her memories of a lost friendship; and a man whose rejection of philosophy forces even Yalom to doubt his trust in it. These people and their stories will stay in our minds long after we have read the last page of his book.

Like The Executioner’s Song and his other writings, Creatures of a Day offers us a penetrating, compassionate, and at the same time courageous look into the human soul, with the pain, confusion, and hope that sustain it.
With this book, Yalom offers the essence of his thought and experience, with humor, skill, and deep humanity.