Bestselling writer and psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom puts himself on the couch in this memoir, blending psychological insight with warmth and empathy. "An amazing storyteller, a gorgeous writer, a great, generous, compassionate thinker, andquite rightlyone of the world's most influential mental healthcare practitioners." Guardian Irvin D. Yalom has made a career of investigating the lives of others. In this memoir, he turns his writing and his therapeutic eye on himself. He opens his story with a nightmare: He is twelve, and is riding his bike past the home of an acne-scarred girl. Like every morning, he calls out, hoping to befriend her, "Hello Measles!" But in his dream, the girl's father makes Yalom understand that his daily greeting had hurt her.

For Yalom, this was the birth of empathy, a lesson he would not forget. As Becoming Myself unfolds, we see the origin of the insightful thinker whose books have been a beacon to so many. Not simply one man's life story, Yalom's reflections on his life and development are an invitation for us to reflect on the origins of our own selves and the meanings of our lives.