The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.
IRVIN D. YALOMSpecialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
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Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind.
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There are borderlines and there are borderlines. Labels do violence to people. You can’t treat the label; you have to treat the person behind the label. (17)
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The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
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Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you’ll always find despair.
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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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And if you do the latter, you’re not so worried about the everyday trivialities of life, for example, petty concerns about secrecy or privacy.
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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.
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Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning.
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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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Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.
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To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
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The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.
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A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM