I don’t like to work with those in love. Perhaps because I envy them – I too yearn to be enchanted. Or maybe it’s because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. A good therapist battles the darkness and seeks the light, while love thrives on mystery and collapses as soon as you begin to scrutinize it closely. And I detest becoming the executioner of love.

TEN TRUE STORIES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY from Irvin D. Yalom's clinical experience. Ten human relationships - ten therapeutic adventures. In this rare account of the dedicated therapist at work, a master of psychiatry openly confronts not only his own feelings and mistakes but also the uncertainty that resides at the heart of the therapeutic relationship.

Yalom here shines a light on both the patients and himself. He describes and examines the process of exploration, the process of participation within psychotherapy for both parties. He shares with us his joys and successes, but even more thrilling - his anxieties, limitations, and failures on his shared journey of seeking truth and healing with each of the ten protagonists in his stories.

These captivating stories go beyond psychotherapy and speak to the human condition with all its heartbreaking paradoxes. In them, Irvin D. Yalom achieves a passion and humor worthy of Chekhov himself.

The 'Executioner of Love,' the therapist himself, is the eleventh patient in these ten psychotherapeutic stories. 'The Executioner of Love' was first published in 1990 and is the first book by IRVIN D. YALOM where the renowned psychotherapist, after his globally recognized scientific works, attempts to narrate psychotherapy stories in a literary manner. It remains, to this day, a landmark in his literary oeuvre.