To Cure Man’s Despair

06 Dr. Yalom

Scrutinizing the psyche: Dr. Yalom signs copies of the German translation of his novel, Und Nietzsche weinte - Photo courtesy of

Irvin Yalom’s 1992 novel, When Nietzsche Wept, was selected for Vienna’s Eine Stadt, Ein Buch campaign

01/12/2009
James Kane

It’s 1882, and the specter of nihilism is stalking Europe. Despair runs rampant and unchecked through the population. Conventional medicine has precious little consolation to offer the suffering, and its alternative – religious mysticism – seems even less effective. Western civilization is in dire need of a new school of treatment for the depressive and hysterical.

Onto this dystopian historical setting, contemporary psychiatrist and fiction writer Dr. Irvin D. Yalom imposes his own rich imagination – and a bit of revisionist history – by introducing Friedrich Nietzsche to Vienna’s Dr. Josef Breuer, one of the earliest practitioners of psychotherapy, the new “talking cure.”

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