• Love's Executioner

  • By: Irvin D. Yalom
  • Narrated by: C.M. Carlson
  • Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (1,103 ratings)

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Love's Executioner  By  cover art

Love's Executioner

By: Irvin D. Yalom
Narrated by: C.M. Carlson
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Publisher's summary

The collection of 10 absorbing tales by master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom uncovers the mysteries, frustrations, pathos, and humor at the heart of the therapeutic encounter. In recounting his patients' dilemmas, Yalom not only gives us a rare and enthralling glimpse into their personal desires and motivations but also tells us his own story as he struggles to reconcile his all-too-human responses with his sensibility as a psychiatrist. Not since Freud has an author done so much to clarify what goes on between a psychotherapist and a patient.

The audio version of the book includes an exclusive interview with Dr. Yalom.

©1989 Irvin Yalom (P)2013 Echo Point Books & Media, LLC

What listeners say about Love's Executioner

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

The saying, “You can’t make this stuff up” lives in the cases Irvin D. Yalom shares with us. Considering that not much action happens in most of the stories, each has its own way of reaching out and touching you, deeply. Some stories don’t just touch, they grab and hold on. We all, each of us, struggle. In excellent narrative form, Yalom consistently weaves this thread throughout and between the stories. This connected commiseration binds the reader/listener to the perspectives of both the therapist and his patients, while it also keeps the reader/listener in full appreciation of the art of narrative, simply for the sake of story, which in this collection happens to be true and, as such, more intriguing.

Please note, I did not pay attention to the narrator’s by line before engaging in the listen— I know, shame on me. The certainty that the voice in my ear was author Irvin D. Yalom remained fully in tact until the writing of this review. Narrator C.M. Carlson speaks the trials in this book with the ease and connectedness of a person who has known firsthand knowledge of and experience with each patient. Carlson delivers a quintessential voiceover experience— one that is free of a grating voice; over dramatization; insufficient pitch or enunciation; poor or non-existent character distinction; and most difficult of all (in my humble opinion), detectible gaps between story and narrator. I dropped a star because in several areas, extraneous background noise injects itself into the production. Had the noise been more strategically placed, it would have worked well as chapter markers, which was exactly what I thought it was at first. The noise occurs more frequently in the first few stories than the latter. It took me a while to figure out that the rather jilting interruptions were jet engines. This is another prime example of why Audible should add an “Editing” or “Production” rating category. Since there is none, and because the likelihood that Carlson was aware of his proximity to an airport and the correlating noise level, I’m knocking off what could have been a perfect narration score.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Required reading for any therapist

I didn't know this is what I have been looking for until I read it. A must read for therapists, or potential therapist, gives a colorful representation of what it is like to work with clients.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Espectacular read

Personal, incisive, honest and exposing. I enjoyed every single story and the connections that each patient had with my own fears, shame, anger and disappointments. Yalom's candid observations about himself were so meaningful as well. Wow...What a gift of a book!

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of my favourite book

This is probably the third time I read this, but the first time reading this by audiobook. It was portraits quite nicely, and the voice change helps me getting into the scene. Well done!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Beautifully written, wonderfully read!

Carlson beautifully reads these wonderfully insightful case presentations from Yalom, which should be read by any aspiring counseling psychologist. Very difficult to stop listening!!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating insight into a therapist's world

Beautiful short stories from the practice vault of Dr Yalom. Candid, heartwarming, sometimes shocking. I found some parts of the narration challenging. As each chapter is distinct from one another it was disconcerting to go from one to the next without so much as a pause. It was also difficult to tell the characters apart in some of the stories as there was no change of voice (or maybe i needed to concentrate more!).

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing!

There's not much to say that hasn't been said. The stories are enthralling and heart wrenching. The insights are invaluable and made me take pause to look at my own life.

The narrator is fantastic and the best I've heard so far.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Probably better in print

I've just finished the third story and, while I like the book itself for all the reasons already discussed by other reviewers, I'm considering sending it back and getting the book in print. Fair warning to picky listeners: The narrator is not terrible, but he must have been really rushed because he makes enough obvious mistakes to get on your nerves. Examples I can recall of times when the word he used clearly didn't make sense, and the word on the page was clearly a different one: "she stated the next session by..." instead of "started," "having giving" instead of "having given," and "concerned" in a place where, according to logic, "considered" had to be the written word. And this is just after three short stories. He also mispronounces the word "infinitely," with the emphasis on the second syllable. Since the author likes to use that word, it's infinitely annoying. This is all not really enough to ruin the book, so I'll probably keep listening and just figuring out what it really says, but it's sloppy, certainly not worth the price of the audiobook, and shows the publisher really doesn't care. That feeling is compounded by the TERRIBLE EDITING. The narrator barely gets the last word of a story out before he says, "Chapter.." and goes on to the next chapter. From the 2nd story to the 3rd, he doesn't even get the whole word out. The author puts a thoughtful spin on his final sentence of each story, and it's completely lost in the breathless jump from one story to the next. Other reviewers mentioned this. It sounds like a small thing, but it's jarring and does interrupt the experience.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great novel about psychotherapy.

Loved to listen to this novel. The story does show it was written 30 years ago but the themes are relevant to today's culture.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

must read for any clinician

aa a therapist this book was very important to me for Yalom's open self-disclosure. it was refreshing for a clinician to open up about their insecurities. very well done, as usual for Irvin Yalom.

the narrator was very good with the exception of the voice for Marvin, that felt a little fake and lazy to me, otherwise the voices were great.

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2 people found this helpful