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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.

Irvin D. Yalom

Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence. . . and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Dignity Else Emerence Everything Government Highest More Protection Religion Revelation
Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
IRVIN D. YALOM

Heal Healer Only Truly Wound
The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Creative Discipline Member Orthodoxy Outgrow Ultimate
Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alway Death Does Door However Inner Itch Scratch Some Time
Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Endlessm Still Greatest Instrument Learn Understanding Work
Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Credo Import Therapeutic Life Living Perhaps Single Unexamined Worth
…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Creator Death Life Money Unlive
Psychotherapy is a cyclical process from isolation into relationship. It is cyclical because the patient, in terror of existential isolation, relates deeply and meaningfully to the therapist and then, strengthened by this encounter, is led back again to a confrontation with existential isolation.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Critical Isolation Process Psychotherapy Relationship Terror Therapist
Many people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Come Despair Dream Even Many More People True
A curious thought experiment. . . Nietzsche’s message to us was to live life in such a way that we would be willing to repeat the same life eternally
IRVIN D. YALOM

Country Curious Experiment Life Live Message People Person Repeat Same Such Through Way Willing
There is some evidence, for example, that those who enter the death-related professions (soldiers, doctors, priests, and morticians) may in part be motivated by a need to obtain control over death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Death Doctor Enter Evidence Example Ned Priest Professional Soldier
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Against Believe Cheer Comfort Illusion Magic Quarry Think Though
I feel strongly, because a man who will himself die one day in the not to distant future and, also, as a psychiatrist who spent decades dealing with death anxiety, that confronting death allows us, not to open some noisome.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Also Day Decade Distant Feel Future Himself Man One Psychiatrist Spent Strongly
Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn’t. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alternate Between Footprint Marvel Mountain Now Sob Think Together Torrential
Mature love is loving, not being loved.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Being Love Loved Loving Mature
The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Both Decision Domain Finiteness Groundlessness Hard Lead Path Soak Territory

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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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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Popular Authors

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