Death cures psychoneurosis. In a sense all these neurotic concerns–fear of rejection, interpersonal concerns–seem to melt away, and people get another perspective on their lives. The important things are really important, and the trivia of life is trivialized.
IRVIN D. YALOMMy hunch is yes. It would certainly do something for those who are most ruthless, who tend to make others most miserable.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.
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Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning.
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The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
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Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.
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The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
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Mature love is loving, not being loved.
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When that person dies, the whole cluster dies,too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?
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I never want to take away something when I don’t have anything better to offer him in a way.
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You know, I think everybody I’ve seen has come from some other therapy, and almost invariably it’s very much the same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They’re not really interested in the person, he doesn’t relate to the person.
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The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.
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In a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown.
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Living safely is dangerous.
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This was due to a kind of increased existential awareness that resulted from this confrontation with the death of another. And I think it brought them in touch with their own death, so they began to experience a kind of preciousness to life that comes with an experience of its transiency.
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I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.
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I don’t let any personal views about religion cause me to want to take away something that’s offering the patient comfort.
IRVIN D. YALOM






