I never want to take away something when I don’t have anything better to offer him in a way.
IRVIN D. YALOMOne 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.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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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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
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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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Some piece of ourselves, not necessarily our consciousness, but some piece of ourselves gets passed on and on and on.
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None of my patients are really troubled by the idea that some part of what they say might be in a book in the future.
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Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love.
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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.
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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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To the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone.
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… sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
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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.
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The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.
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I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws.
IRVIN D. YALOM






