The fifth chapter in Dr. Yalom’s collection of essays focuses on a widowed woman named Elva who has to relive the trauma of losing her husband. The chapter “I Never Thought It Would Happen to Me” is about a woman with an established psychological connection between her lost husband and her own sense of exclusivity and security (Yalom, 1989). After the death of her husband, Elva lost her sense of the value of life but learned to live with the idea that the energy that her husband communicated remained with her. After she was robbed, she felt a deep psychological trauma due to the symbolic perception of the event as an indication of her helplessness and ordinariness.
Dr. Yalom offered to sort out in detail her large handbag full of all sorts of accumulated and unnecessary belongings. After this hour of exploring her personal belongings, Elva felt much more relieved (Yalom, 1989). My deepest impression is the peculiarity of the relationship between the therapist and the patient in the session. Yalom exploring her personal things makes her come to terms with herself through the fact that she shares the most intimate. It forces one to overcome an existential sense of emptiness hinting at finiteness and mortality.
Ethical principles of social work that require considering seem to affirm the value and dignity of the individual, as well as the importance of human relationships. The principle of the value of the individual is the basis for their work and social motivation, since this will mean that society is not indifferent to them. But in a more personal way, this indifference is expressed at the level of more intimate human relationships. As a therapist working with Elva’s case, I would also feel the need to overcome the boundary between myself and the patient, but without going to the level of a violation of privacy. Terror management theory could be effective in accepting existential thoughts about one’s own non-exclusivity and finiteness symbolized for Elva in a stolen bag. Perhaps Elva would benefit from group workshops for widowers or single seniors as they could give her the opportunity to share the trauma and accept the inevitable aspects of life in order to become a more fulfilling, better person. This case forces one to look at many of the problems of psychotherapist patients as purely existential, associated with a refusal to accept the inevitable finiteness of individual life.
Reference
Yalom, I. (1989). Love’s executioner and other tales of psychotherapy. Basic Books.