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. YALOMLook out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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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.
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Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.
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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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Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence. . . and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas.
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Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.
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Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life!
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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.
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One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
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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.
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Mature love is loving, not being loved.
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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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The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
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A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
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Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
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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
IRVIN D. YALOM