black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

Irvin D. Yalom

A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Death Deep Dissatisfaction Focus Overcome Point Strat
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
This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Blossom Costly Diminish Existence Forever Knowledge Price Shadow Some Wound
Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Accident Existence Let Life Plan Possession
Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a ‘falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Being Fall Give Large Limited Love Mode Person Rather Relate Single Way
To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Activity Another Concerned Growth Life Love Mena
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Absolute Allow Clear Determine Empty Free Friendship Man Premiseble Way
Some have expressed the very opposite feeling–the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Enough Expression Fear Feeling Interest Opposite Some Write
I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Being Call Claws Must No Stop Themselves
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?
IRVIN D. YALOM

Cluster Dead Death Living Memory Person Truly Vanish Wonder
In 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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Back Bereavement Found Gone Impressive Number Old Rather Simply Study Widow Windower
The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Creative Discipline Member Orthodoxy Outgrow Ultimate
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
Reality always creeps in–the reality of our helplessness and our mortality; the reality that, despite our reach for the stars, a creaturely fate awaits us.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Always Creep Experience Helplessness Indeed Morality Reality
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
The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Accept Accuse Act Another Being Fully Oneself Reveal Therapeutic Vehicle
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
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
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Death Destroy Idea Physical Save Through
Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Look Other Out Patient See Window World
If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Choose Growth Pain Pleasure Prepare Some Want
It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death’s terror.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Aware Death East Every Face Moment Much Not Only Stand Stare Sun Terror Try
To the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Acute Best Every Experience Impatient Knowledge Offer Some Therapy
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Goodwill Movie Out People Peron Person Pick Sea 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
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
Mirroring, softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Barely Consciousness Just Membrance Mirror Softly Under

If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes