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"Irvin D. Yalom. “When Nietzsche Wept”, a

Teaching Novel

Article · March 2014

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 Irvin D. Yalom. “When Nietzsche Wept”, a Teaching Novel"
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Posted: May 13, 2014 | Author: jpintobooks | Filed under: Books | Tags: Book
Review, Historic Novel, Lou Andreas Salome, Nietzsche, philosophy, psychotherapy,
Yalom | Leave a comment"
“Yalom’s virtuosity has resided in a particular capacity to meld philosophy, literature and
psychiatry into a corpus of work that illuminates life-as-lived for all” wrote his colleague and
biographer Dr. Ruthellen Josselson. Yalom’s books on psychotherapy are widely read around
the world and one of his most well know theoretical books on mental health practice, The
Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy has been translated into seventeen languages
and together with Existential Psychotherapy is considered a classic in its field, making Yalom a
highly acclaimed scholar."
Yalom has also been internationally recognized as a fiction writer for his novels, particularly
When Nietzsche Wept, a best seller translated into more than 20 languages. In this novel
Yalom’s experience as a therapist is manifested together with his knowledge of philosophy, a
field that he has cultivated since his early years as a student at the university."
Yalom’s novels could be considered historical fiction, a literary genre that has been popular
since ancient times. The Iliad by Homer about the Trojan War and Shakespeare’s tragedies are
some examples of old classic texts. In modern times, Joseph and his Brothers by Thomas
Mann, based on the Book of Genesis, The Ides of March by Thornton Wilder about the last days
of Julius Caesar and more recently The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, a well-acclaimed
novel about a manuscript of a monk describing convent life in the Middle Ages and the struggle
between different church orders, as well as The Medici Boy, a novel by John L’Heureux
published a short time ago, about the life of Donatello, the famous Italian artist in the 15th
century, provide other relevant examples."
In this type of novel, the characters are historic figures appearing with their real names and the
plot is built around well documented historic facts, including descriptions of epoch, location,
situation, background, physical appearance of the characters and, in some cases, complete
texts from published books or letters. This genre is so demanding that its writers not only have
to be good at fiction, but also need to equipped with research skills to create a sense of
historical reality."
Regarding When Nietzsche Wept, its principal characters include Nietzsche, the famous
philosopher, and Dr. Joseph Breuer, the prominent Viennese therapist who has been considered
as one of the founders of modern psychoanalysis, together with Lou Andreas Salome, a
controversial Russian writer with whom Nietzsche was obsessively in love. Sigmund Freud also
appears in the novel as a close young disciple of Breuer’s at the time. The roles and
conversations of the characters, although mostly based on actual events mentioned in their
biographies, published letters and writings, mainly Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, are
partly fictionalized."
The novel begins with a meeting in October 1882 at a cafe in Venice where Lou Andreas
Salome, then a young good looking and sophisticated Intellectual woman, asked Dr. Breuer to
help her friend Nietzsche as he was deeply depressed and would probably kill himself. “It would
be a great loss for me, and a great personal tragedy because I would bear some responsibility,”
she pleaded. Andreas explained that Nietzsche was madly in love with her and after living
together in a “chaste” ménage à trois which also included Paul Rée, another philosopher and
Nietzsche’s disciple many years before. The “intellectual honeymoon of our unholy Trinity was
also brief. Fissures appeared”, Andreas explained that Nietzsche was deeply hurt when she
 refused his marriage proposal. This affair briefly mentioned in the
novel happened in real life and is well documented, including a
famous photograph taken in Lucerne showing Nietzsche and Rée
pretending to pull a cart with Lou Andreas inside brandishing a small
whip —- many attributed this moment, regarding the problem with Lou
Andreas to a famous quote from Thus Spake Zarathustra, First part
XVIII. Old and Young Women: “Thou goest to women? Do not forget
thy whip!”"
"
Dr. Breuer seemed reluctant to take the case but became interested in the story and offered to
recommend other doctors. Salomé insisted. “Nietzsche has exhausted the medical resources of
Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. No physician has been able to comprehend his malady or
relieve his symptoms” and she added, “you are a doctor for despair”. Breuer replied, “Despair is
not a medical symptom, Fraulein.” Already hinting to a future therapy for mental illness, Salome,
undeterred by the answer, reminded Breuer that her brother had attended Breuer’s classes, in
which he, as a practitioner described how “uncovering of the origin of each symptom somehow
dissolved it. ”"
To make the case more complicated and at the same time appealing to Breuer, Lou Salome told
him that Nietzsche “doesn’t know that I’m speaking to you. He is an intensely private person and
a proud man”, therefore Breuer had to conceal any previous knowledge of the situation of his
future patient and his relationship with her."
At the end of a long intriguing conversation, Lou Andreas’ description of Nietzsche’s ideas and
work together with exceptional circumstances made Breuer accept the challenge. “my dear
lady…, I will see your friend. That goes without saying. After all, I am a physician”."
The framework of the story is now set and the plot centers around the meetings, conversations,
notes and internal dialogues between the two brilliant minds of Nietzsche and Breuer, both
suffering from the despair born from impossible obsessive love with younger attractive women."
The story shows how the roles of the therapist and patient blur when the fictional Nietzsche
starts to take notes about Dr. Breuer’s obsessions and how he can best help him, turning the
philosopher into a healer or a therapist. We can assume that the same kind of experience
happened to Yalom in his own professional practice since he regularly refers to his passion for
stories about old healers particularly to Hermann Hesse’s novel Magister Ludi, which tells a tale
about two renowned healers and indirectly touches on the nature of the patient-therapist
relationship. In his own words, “.. the echoes of these tales ring throughout the pages of the
novel.”"
By choosing a psychotherapist and a philosopher with historical relevance as the main
characters of When Nietzsche Wept makes it possible to uncover other elements in Yalom’s
biography. In her book Irvin D. Yalom: On Psychotherapy and the Human Condition, Ruthellen
Josselson reveals how Yalom “was intrigued by the links between philosophical reflection and
the healing that takes place in psychotherapy, implying that, like in the story “the philosophers
were covert therapists.”"
Making Nietzsche a therapist was one of the ideas that inspired Yalom to write the fiction novel,
a possibility which, he thought, “could have happened”, quoting Andre Gide: ‘history is fiction
that did happen. Whereas fiction is history that might have happened.”"
When Nietzsche Wept clearly shows Yalom’s talent as a fiction writer, a philosopher and one of
the most admired psychotherapists of our time, particularly displaying his knowledge and
imagination to vividly portray Nietzsche’s broken relationship with Lou Andreas Salome, the
torments that followed and the path to recovery."
 At the end of the story, Yalom included a special section titled “On Writing a Teaching Novel”,
where he describes in some detail the sources that inspired his book together with some of the
ideas underlying the novel, written in a style that allows the readers to become acquainted with
some important moments of the history of psychotherapy: the terminology and the healing
process for despair and depression, ailments that afflicted Frederich Nietzsche. Clearly Yalom
has achieved his goal by making up a story of a complex relationships, an exciting thriller full of
interesting insights into philosophy, psychology, and the fragility of the human being."
Excerpts From:"
Irvin D. Yalom. When Nietzsche Wept. Basic Books 1991 & HarperCollins Publishers 2011"
Ruthellen Josselson. Irvin D. Yalom: On Psychotherapy and the Human Condition. Jorge Pinto
Books, Inc. 2007 Available in iTunes iBook"
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https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wo/
8.0.0.11.5.0.7.3.1.17.1.11.1.9.1.0.1.0.8.1"
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