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. YALOMWhat? ‘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.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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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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It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one’s germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness!
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You know, I think everybody I’ve seen has come from some other therapy, and almost invariably it’s very much the same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They’re not really interested in the person, he doesn’t relate to the person.
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Pandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
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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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When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
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The death anxiety of many people is fueled … by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential.
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Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
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Only free man are genuinely useful to one another and can form true friendships. And it’s absolutely permissible, by the highest right of Nature, for everyone to employ clear reason to determine how to live in a way that will allow him to flourish.
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I never want to take away something when I don’t have anything better to offer him in a way.
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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 more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
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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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Living safely is dangerous.
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Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer
IRVIN D. YALOM