In The Schopenhauer Cure, Irvin D. Yalom tells the story of uber-successful psychotherapist, Julius Hertzfeld, coming to terms with his own terminal cancer and the reverberating impacts that this diagnosis has on his clients. After finding out he has only a year left, Julius begins to reflect on the value of his life, particularly in terms of how his work has helped others. He becomes hauntingly fixated on one of his greatest professional failures, his inability to help a misanthropic sex addict named Philip Slate. After reaching out to Philip, Julius learns that his old patient, as cold and apathetic as ever, has decided to become a therapist himself and needs Julius’ help to obtain his license. The type of therapy Philip hopes to practice, however, is diametrically opposed to the style that Julius tried, and failed, with Philip.

In particular, Philip wishes to utilize the teachings of 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whom he calls his “therapist”, to help others overcome the suffering that he believes is inherent in life and relationships. The rest of the novel explores how this pessimistic philosophy of asceticism impacts Julius and the rest of the therapy group, with Yalom interweaving the biography of Schopenhauer between chapters in order to more fully grapple with questions of its context and possible use.

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788–21 September 1860)

Yalom explores the appeal of Schopenhauer’s philosophy (frequently drawing parallels to Buddhism) which analyzes the world as a complex of appearances existing only through our representations and suffering as the result of illogical human will ungrounding these representations. Yalom recognizes that the hope inspired by this interpretation to be able to eliminate suffering is very powerful, yet is highly critical of the effectiveness of denying all “illusions” of human desire (and false perceptions of happiness and comfort that stem from this desire) through chastity and asceticism. With Julius as his mouthpiece, Yalom preaches the importance of relationships, emotions, and connections over the logic and idealism of Philip’s rigid Schopenhauer and Buddhist inspired philosophy.

However, my main takeaway from the book is not an outright rejection of Schopenhauer and his postulation on the human condition. Yalom invests too deeply in Schopenahuer’s life and articulates too clearly the tenets of Schopenhauer’s philosophy to think he is unworthy of contemplation. Instead, I think Yalom is expounding a much more complicated thesis on the contextual over universal applicability of different philosophies and the dangers of an unevolving “capital T” Truth.

As a highly intelligent, narcissistic, sex addict, Philip is a slave to his own desires, driven by his will to seek an end to his interminable loneliness and despair through carnal relations with others. He is trapped in what Schopenhauer deems the Ixion wheel, in which “we want, we want, we want, we want…The will drives us relentlessly because, once a need is satisfied, it is soon replaced by another need and another and another throughout our life…Hence, what is human life other than an endless cycle of wanting, satisfaction, boredom, and then wanting again?” (Yalom, 233). Stuck in this cycle of self-loathing and disappointment, Julius’ pleas to try to help Philip understand the root of these self-destructive desires and reframe how he views himself in relation to others fall on deaf ears, as Philip is too attached to the absoluteness of his condition, too driven by his will to allow any space for reflection or change.

It is here where Schopenhauer’s ideas resonate with Philip in a way that Julius’ could not; in re-interpreting his life as a series of representations, Philip regains agency in the ability to control the relationships between his will, emotions, and projections of reality. In focusing on attachment as the root of this drive, fueled by the hope he can eliminate the root of his suffering through severing this attachment, Philip finds the agency to motivate himself to radically break from his behavioral patterns. Through this intensely ascetic process, he learns that he does have the ability to radically transform himself and gains the distance from his patterns and attachments to be able to observe and analyze his behavior from a more objective point of view.

Ixion In Tartarus On The Wheel, 1731 Drawing by Bernard Picart

In this way, it appears that the logical interpretation of life and attachment as the root of suffering have been extremely helpful for Philip. Through this model, he is able to break from his endless cycle of desire and sex, recognize his own agency, and engage in a more examined life. What he does not gain, however, is the end to his suffering that was promised, the true breaking of his Ixion wheel. When we first meet him in the novel, rather than question some of the fundamental assumptions of this worldview, Philip is doubling down, believing that the suffering he is still experiencing can be eliminated if only he can further remove himself from the attachments he still has left.

Yalom’s criticism of Schopenhauer is not the premises, but the true possibility/desirability of the solutions offered. In their final session together, Julius reflects that “I don’t believe we’re as far apart as you think. I don’t disagree with much that you and Schopenhauer have said about the tragedy of the human condition. Where you go east and I go west is when we turn to the question of what to do about it. How shall we live? How to face our mortality? How to live with the knowledge that we are simply life-forms, thrown into an indifferent universe, with no preordained purpose?” (Yalom, 331).

While the extremism of Schopenhauer’s resignation may have been the necessary tone to resonate with Philip at the depths of his despair and provide the motivation and strategies to pull him out of that hole, these same strategies may begin to appear far less appealing when examined under the light of universal applicability. Using the terms “good” or “bad” applies as much to the philosophy of Schopenhauer, the Buddha, Nietzsche, or Freud (just several of the many philosophical lenses examined in the book) as it does to the music of Led Zeppelin, Tame Impala, Migos, and Beethoven. With reference to the importance of context the 17th century Jewish philosopher Spinoza writes “As for the terms good and bad, they indicate nothing positive considered in themselves…for one and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent. For example, music is good to the melancholy, bad to the mourners, and indifferent to the dead” (Spinoza, Ethics).

Throughout the novel, the conflict between Philip and Julius push each other to learn that philosophies, even highly successful personal philosophies, gain their truth from context, and the importance of maintaining the flexibility to update and adapt one’s own ideas as necessary. Just as Philip is pushed to view the limitations of his own goals of total detachment, Julius is forced to come to grips with the potential usefulness of such extreme logical pessimism.

In his deeply engaging book, Tribe, Sebastian Junger explores a similar idea in the more tangible structure of the Iroquois government. Understanding the need to be able to radically adapt in times of crisis, the Iriquois had parallel systems of power, wartime leaders (often dominated by men) that were given complete power to defeat the enemy by any means necessary in times of war, and peacetime leaders, called sachems, (often chosen by women) that were more concerned with the more overarching matters of justice, fairness, and harmony that allowed a tribe to survive internally.

When it comes to personal philosophies and value systems, one’s orientations are obviously not so binary as war and peace. Instead, this metaphor is meant to convey a larger need to, sometimes, define ethical truths as that which is necessary and refrain from the rigidity that oftentimes comes with success.

Philip was suffering a great deal from his attachments, and while in this state of suffering, could not begin to differentiate the “good” aspects of his attachments from the “bad”. Embracing the ideology of Schopenhauer led to a great victory over the suffering which he was experiencing in the moment, however did not come without costs of its own. Rather than electing a peacetime sachem, Philip chose to live his life as a never ending war. While this served to protect him from the return of many potential threats, it also excluded him from ever experiencing the whole spectrum of life associated with the flip side of the suffering coin: pleasure, relief, happiness, love. As Julius later expounds to Philip. “attachments, and plenty of them, are indispensable ingredients of a full life, and to avoid attachments because of anticipated suffering is a sure recipe for being only partially alive” (Yalom, 99).

Joy and Sadness from Pixar’s Inside Out

The mistake that Philip makes which I can most easily identify with is the possibility of confusing equanimity as a path with equanimity as a goal. Rather than using asceticism and disconnection from existing routines as a path towards establishing newer and more healthy ones, Philip tries to replace all engagement with disconnection. Rather than creating space in order to better choose where to spend time/energy in relationships and life, Philip tries to remove himself completely from those attachments, which hold for him the possibility of suffering.

Is Yalom correct then, that complete detachment is impossible, or is that just the tempting voice of the human will/ego? Is a life of equanimity truly preferable to that of the full spectrum of the human experience?

This book plants several very potent seeds of self-reflection within it’s fluid narrative: namely, which aspects of my own philosophy, even among those instrumental to my definition of self, no longer serve me? What must I let go of, even if it has propelled me forward in the past, in order to be better able to respond to my current needs?

Through all Schopenhauer’s brooding pessimism and the heaviness of the self-reflective questions which it compels, there is a certain lightness and compassion that manages to shine through if you squint your eyes hard enough. Though this book has compelled me to reflect on my own philosophical shortcomings and illuminated all the ways in which there is no end to the imperfections of one’s way of interacting with the world, there is something comforting about the universality of this condition. Since we are all, and must always be, imperfect, we can choose not to weigh ourselves down with too much judgement for these imperfections.