Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead – when I exist in no one’s memory.
IRVIN D. YALOMThe death anxiety of many people is fueled … by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
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If I had to pick out a therapist in a movie that I’d like to go see as a personal therapist, it would be Robin Williams in Goodwill Hunting.
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Hidden in disguise, leaking out in a variety of symptoms. It is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts.
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You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.
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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.
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Some sort of greater awareness of their own finiteness and what their time on earth really is, and what they really want to do with their lives, could help improve them.
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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.
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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.
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To the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience.
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… sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
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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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I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws.
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One reason patients are reluctant to work in a therapy group is they fear that things will go too far, that the powerful therapist or the collective group might coerce them to lose control–to say or think or feel things that will be catastrophic.
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If people in their 20s had more death awareness, would that in fact temper their ambition or drive?
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Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you “Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?” – Immediately you did not want to anymore; and when I asked you again you remained silent.
IRVIN D. YALOM