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. YALOMThe more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
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Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.
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The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.
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It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one’s germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness!
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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.
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… sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
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To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual.
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To the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone.
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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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My hunch is yes. It would certainly do something for those who are most ruthless, who tend to make others most miserable.
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If I’m among men who don’t agree at all with my nature, I will hardly be able to accommodate myself to them without greatly changing myself.
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Some have expressed the very opposite feeling–the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
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If one is to learn to live with the dead, one must first learn to live with the living!
IRVIN D. YALOM