The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D. Yalom
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cancer Cures Neurosis

An episode of the British sci-fi comedy, Red Dwarf, has a disturbing female character with a heavy Germanic accent proclaiming, "Schopenhauer was rrrright: Without pain, life has no meaning. I am about to give your life meaning." This is more or less the central theme of Yalom's novel.

Like Robertson Davies' Manticore, The Schopenhauer Cure follows a series of psycho-analytic therapy sessions, interspersed with background material. But Yalom uses group not individual therapy as the binding story-line. And Instead of the Jungian technique of Davies, inserts the highly unlikely character of the German 19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer as a model for psychological investigation and treatment.

Unlikely because, although Schopenhauer certainly inspired subsequent doctors of the mind through his philosophy, he himself was without question a neurotic of the first order. He had no stable relationships, male or female. He was alienated from his suicidal father, his emotionally distant mother, and his spinster sister for decades before each of them died without concern on his part. He spent his entire adult life in a sort of normalized isolation dominated by an abiding obsession with death.

On the other hand, Schopenhauer was not an unhappy person. Or to put it more aptly in terms of his philosophy, he experienced less pain than he might have, had he not learned to recognise the futility of his desires - material, social, professional, but especially sexual.

Schopenhauer's self-prescribed psycho-therapy involved training himself insistently that such desires could never actually be achieved, or more accurately that such desires once sated would merely be replaced by others, and so on ad infinitum as well as ad nauseum. So he adopted the life of a hermetic recluse - on the streets of 19th century Frankfurt rather than the deserts of 4th century Syria.

Yalom's motivating character, Philip, is a devotee of Schopenhauer's philosophy, who in a Luther-like attempt to heal himself by diagnosing his own as the world's problem, crashes an established therapy group in order to fulfill his training requirements as... a psycho-therapist!

So a person who is happily convinced that a primary source of pain is attachment to human relationships involves himself in a therapeutic group, the function of which is to intensify human relationships among its members. What could go wrong?

In fact the situation provokes some rather interesting insights by all concerned, including the reader. Without doubt, for example, Yalom's group, both individually and collectively, is improved by the insertion of the Schopenhaurian take on life, no matter how dismal it might appear. Every member of the group perceives an important contribution is made by Philip, although none understands precisely why or how.

More significantly the confrontation between two opposed views of the world pointedly raises the issue of what constitutes the success of a psycho-therapeutic process. What are the criteria of psychological or emotional 'healing'? Is it personal contentment? A feeling of acceptance within a group? Reduced compulsivity? Increased social skills? All or none of the above? It isn't at all clear that members of the group share the same criterion of success to begin with but Philip's arrival formalizes the issue, at least for the therapist-in-charge.

The therapist-in-charge dies with his boots on (from cancer), so we don't get his view on the issue. The only one to get the short end of the therapeutic stick, however, is poor Philip. 'Reconnected' to his desiring self, he suffers the pain and anxiety of human relationships once again. Is 'meaning' worth the price? By whose standard?

Postscript: Tomorrow is the anniversary of Schopenhauer's death. It seems more appropriate to celebrate his death than his birth. So here's to the inimitable Arthur for whom one of my sons is named.

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