The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOMThe therapist can make the group feel safer by allowing each patient to set his or her limits and by emphasizing the patient’s control over every interaction.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
-
-
Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you’ll always find despair.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Living safely is dangerous.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Some piece of ourselves, not necessarily our consciousness, but some piece of ourselves gets passed on and on and on.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Mirroring, softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
If I’m among men who don’t agree at all with my nature, I will hardly be able to accommodate myself to them without greatly changing myself.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Some sort of greater awareness of their own finiteness and what their time on earth really is, and what they really want to do with their lives, could help improve them.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Mature love is loving, not being loved.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM