User:Masangina · CC BY-SA 3.0

A psychiatrist who built a body of work around four confrontations he saw as central to being human — death, isolation, meaninglessness, and freedom — and argued that facing them honestly, rather than avoiding them, is where real therapeutic change happens. His textbook The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy became standard training material, while books like Love's Executioner and the novel When Nietzsche Wept carried existential ideas to a wide general readership. He is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford.