In this book a psychotherapist describes ten cases which include that of Thelma, an elderly woman possessed by a past love-affair; Carlos, a middle-aged man compulsively lustful in the face of fatal cancer; and Betty, whose obesity threatens to engulf both herself and the psychiatrist. The work provides an insight into a therapist at work. Dr Yalom confronts not only his own feelings and errors, but the uncertainty at the very heart of the therapeutic encounter. He describes the way he breaks through that uncertainty to a patient's ultimate truth. Only by recognizing the stark facts of human existence, he suggests, can any of us live in full awareness of ourselves as mortal creatures.