"Momma and the Meaning of Life" is Irvin Yalom's second collection of stories, following "Love's Executioner". With bold honesty, the psychiatrist-author brings to life, in his most personal book, his limitations and mistakes, his fantasies, doubts, and experiments, and through these, the journey towards understanding, learning, and ultimately teaching. Four true/autobiographical stories and two fictional narratives featuring Ernest Lash, the psychotherapist from the novel "Lying on the Couch", create a mosaic of gripping situations that constantly move in and out of the boundaries of psychotherapy, exploring from another perspective the inexhaustible issues of life and death, freedom and responsibility, the meaning of existence and its loss, loneliness and society.

"Irvin Yalom brings to these wonderful psychotherapy stories his rich experience as a therapist, his extensive knowledge in philosophy and literature, and his profound humanity. He draws his reader into these stories with the same skill he engages his patients in psychotherapy."
(David Spiegel, M.D., author of "Living Beyond Limits")

"Irvin Yalom continues to surprise us. Vitality, careful language, deep knowledge, courage, and an ability to listen and learn are the indelible traits of this book."
(Leston Havens, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University and Cambridge Hospital)

"These enchanting narratives of pain and healing take us to the heart of the therapeutic experience."
(Maggie Scarf, author of "Intimate Worlds")