black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life.

Irvin D. Yalom

Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Field Finish Medicine Other Psychiatry Really Straight Unlike
To the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Extent Life Alone One Responsible
One thing I feel clear about is that it’s important not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you end up at forty feeling you haven’t really lived. What have I learned? Perhaps to live now, so that at fifty I won’t look back upon my forties with regret.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Clear Feel Important Lety Live One Thing
Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Gaze Growth Life Need Personal Service Therapist Towards Transcend Wish
… sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Better Give Hope Later Past Sooner
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
He had learned long ago that, in general, the easier it was for anxious patients to reach him, the less likely they were to call. (107)
IRVIN D. YALOM

Ago Anxious Easier General Learn Less Long Patient Person Reach Viall
Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a ‘falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Being Fall Give Large Limited Love Mode Person Rather Relate Single Way
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
None of my patients are really troubled by the idea that some part of what they say might be in a book in the future.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Book Future Idea might None Part Patient Reality Say Some Trouble
I never want to take away something when I don’t have anything better to offer him in a way.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anything Beter Met never Something Take Way
Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Before Birth Darkness Death Identical Life Spark Void
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?
IRVIN D. YALOM

Cluster Dead Death Living Memory Person Truly Vanish Wonder
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
Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Look Other Out Patient See Window World
Therapists need to have a long experience in personal therapy to see what it’s like to be on the other side of the couch and see what they find helpful or not helpful. And if possible, get into therapy at different stages of their life with different kinds of therapists just to sample a bit.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Couch Experience Like Long Need Personal Side Therapist

We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes