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. YALOMEvery person must choose how much truth he can stand.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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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 -
Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you “Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?” – Immediately you did not want to anymore; and when I asked you again you remained silent.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
I never want to take away something when I don’t have anything better to offer him in a way.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
The death anxiety of many people is fueled … by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
I don’t let any personal views about religion cause me to want to take away something that’s offering the patient comfort.
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 -
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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 -
Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world.
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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.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
IRVIN D. YALOM