Some have expressed the very opposite feeling–the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
IRVIN D. YALOMReligion 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.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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What? ‘Borderline patients play games’? That what you said? Ernest, you’ll never be a real therapist if you think like that. That’s exactly what I meant earlier when I talked about the dangers of diagnosis.
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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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Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world.
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Pandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
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To the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience.
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Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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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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Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
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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
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The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
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The drive for power is not uncommonly motivated by this dynamic. One’s own fear and sense of limitation is avoided by enlarging oneself and one’s sphere of control.
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Mature love is loving, not being loved.
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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.
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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