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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.

Irvin D. Yalom

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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Clear Feel Important Lety Live One Thing
The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Choice Construct Man Out Spirit
There is some evidence, for example, that those who enter the death-related professions (soldiers, doctors, priests, and morticians) may in part be motivated by a need to obtain control over death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Death Doctor Enter Evidence Example Ned Priest Professional Soldier
Were not teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, how you examine the inner world, how you examine your dreams.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Important Pathology People Relationship Student Teach Work
Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Decide Life Miserable Spend Think
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Critical Isolation Process Psychotherapy Relationship Terror Therapist
Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Absolute Always Corrupt Individual Known Power Trick
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

Effect Growth Life Local Patient Pleasure Ripple Salutary Take Touch
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Attempt Difficult Evidence Grow Health Impatient Indeed Operate Profession Small
Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Absorbed Being Distinction Heidegger Make Thing Way World
Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
IRVIN D. YALOM

Being Dose Mean Require Universal
Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alway Death Does Door However Inner Itch Scratch Some Time
To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Another Care Experience Fully Individual Know Mean Other Possible
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

Everybody Know Other Seen Some Therapy Think You
One reason patients are reluctant to work in a therapy group is they fear that things will go too far, that the powerful therapist or the collective group might coerce them to lose control–to say or think or feel things that will be catastrophic.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Far Fear Group Once Patient Powerful Reason Reluctant Therapist Therapy Thing Too Work
Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anything Away Better never Nothing Offer Take
Specialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Death Form Mode Number Other Primary Specialties Take Transcendence
Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life!
IRVIN D. YALOM

Consummated Death Die Life Lose One Terror
Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn’t. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alternate Between Footprint Marvel Mountain Now Sob Think Together Torrential
If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Choose Growth Pain Pleasure Prepare Some Want
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

Awareness Earth Finiteness Greater Help Improve Live Really Some Sort
One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Compreghend Oneself Order Our Preoccuped
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Death Destroy Idea Physical Save Through
As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Apprehenf As Reach Before Crest Death Downward Life Longer Look Mind Path Slope Toward
Pandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Box Compassionate Enter Life Maner More Pandora Re Richer
The 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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Allow Each Emphasize Group InterAction Limit Patient Safer Set Therapist
Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Endlessm Still Greatest Instrument Learn Understanding Work

If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.

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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.

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