Creatures of a Day: and other tales of psychotherapy

In his long and distinguished career, Irvin D. Yalom has pressed his patients and readers to grapple with life's two greatest challenges: that we all must die, and that each of us is responsible for leading a life worth living. In Creatures of a Day, he and his patients confront the difficulty of these challenges.

Yalom not only gives us an enthralling glimpse into their personal desires and motivations but also tells us his own story as he struggles to reconcile his emotional life with the demands placed on him and reckons with his own life's inevitable end. Creatures of a Day shows that the process of psychotherapy can create some of the most engrossing human dramas imaginable. It provides an intelligent, compassionate, and yet unflinching look at the human soul and all the pain, confusion, and hope that go with it.

Suffused with humour, great artistry, and profound humanity, Creatures of a Day lays bare the necessary task we each face, each day, to make our own lives meaningful.

'Poignant and beautiful insights from a wise therapist looking back on a career, a therapist who happens to be a writer I greatly admire - Creatures of a Day is just what the Doctor ordered!'
— Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone