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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

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
The drive for power is not uncommonly motivated by this dynamic. One’s own fear and sense of limitation is avoided by enlarging oneself and one’s sphere of control.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Control Drive Enlarge Fear Limitation Motivate Oneself Own Power S[Here
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

Also Day Decade Distant Feel Future Himself Man One Psychiatrist Spent Strongly
What? ‘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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Country Emest Game never People Person Real Said Therapist Think
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
Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Field Finish Medicine Other Psychiatry Really Straight Unlike
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!
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alleviate Another Bear Child Children Consciousness Gem Life Loneliness Need Provide Purpose Reproduce Sperm Use Wrong
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Another Crave Dream Love More People Possess
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

Able Accomplish Agree Among Change Great Hardly Men Myself Nature
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

Gaze Growth Life Need Personal Service Therapist Towards Transcend Wish
The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Creator Death Like More Unlive
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
I think we ripple on into others, just like a stone puts its ripples into a brook. That, for me, too, is a source of comfort. It kind of, in a sense, negates the sense of total oblivion.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Brook Comfort Obvious Other Put Ripple Sense Source Stone Think
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Cease Climb Enough Height Loo Reach Tragedy Tragic We
The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Choice Construct Man Out Spirit

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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