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I started this book in an independent study in the last semester of a my MSSW. This was an exciting and wholly overwhelming time as season of school was ending and the season of getting a job and actually "doing the damn thing" was starting. I felt like I had a precious handful things I that I knew and a bathtub full of knowing of what I don't know. I had (and still sort of have) an urgency to get more, know more and "cram" in anything to quiet the panic of "doing the damn thing" with so much left that I didn't know. This book was a good read during that time. It reads quickly because of the very short chapters and conversational writing style. I particularly appreciated the last two chapters which discuss the occupation hazards and occupational privileges of clinical work. Yalom says that therapists are often either devalued/irrationally feared by clients or overvalued/viewed as more powerful than they actually are. This can be internalized into a tendency for a therapist to critique her own work with either "ripples self-doubt or grandiosity". I was thankful to read this and could relate to the inner critic on these extremes. He had other chapters called "Let the Patient Matter To You", "The Therapist has Many Patients; The Patient, One Therapist", "Acknowledge Your Errors" "Teach Empathy", etc. And in a discussion of therapist going to their own therapy, Yalom admits to several stints in therapy of his own, including a "nude marathon encounter group" in the sixties. So there's that. While this book was good and worthwhile, I think I'm coming to accept that most of that bathtub of "not knowing" won't be drained by books and probably won't ever be drained at all (very unfortunately). With some time removed from the pre-graduation panic, I think my urgency to KNOW A WHOLE BUNCH MORE RIGHT NOW has shifted to more of an awareness that I need to keep building knowledge, which will happen slowly, through the experience of practice, learning from mistakes. Sort of like a bathtub, draining slowly, slowly, slowly.