I don’t let any personal views about religion cause me to want to take away something that’s offering the patient comfort.
IRVIN D. YALOMIn a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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A free man who lives among the ignorant strives as far as he can to avoid their favors. A free man acts honestly, not deceptively.
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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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Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
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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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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.
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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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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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The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
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The death anxiety of many people is fueled … by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential.
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To the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience.
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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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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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Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.
IRVIN D. YALOM