Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
IRVIN D. YALOMTo the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.
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If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
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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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Pandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
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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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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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If people in their 20s had more death awareness, would that in fact temper their ambition or drive?
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Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
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Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life!
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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.
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Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life.
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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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Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
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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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One thing I feel clear about is that it’s important not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you end up at forty feeling you haven’t really lived. What have I learned? Perhaps to live now, so that at fifty I won’t look back upon my forties with regret.
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Living safely is dangerous.
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Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
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Some piece of ourselves, not necessarily our consciousness, but some piece of ourselves gets passed on and on and on.
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Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
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Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
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A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
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I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people.
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One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
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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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A sense of life meaning ensues but cannot be deliberately pursued: life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves.
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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
IRVIN D. YALOM