Religion 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.
IRVIN D. YALOMTo love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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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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We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer.
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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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Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.
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A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
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Mature love is loving, not being loved.
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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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The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.
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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.
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Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
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Indeed, the evidence supporting the efficacy of group therapy, and the prevailing sentiment of the mental health profession, are sufficiently strong that it would be difficult to defend the adequacy of the inpatient unit that attempted to operate without a small group program.
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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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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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When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
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Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life.
IRVIN D. YALOM