Death cures psychoneurosis. In a sense all these neurotic concerns–fear of rejection, interpersonal concerns–seem to melt away, and people get another perspective on their lives. The important things are really important, and the trivia of life is trivialized.
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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You know, I think everybody I’ve seen has come from some other therapy, and almost invariably it’s very much the same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They’re not really interested in the person, he doesn’t relate to the person.
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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.
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Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
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Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
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If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
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Many people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.
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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.
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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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The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
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One doesn’t do existential therapy as a freestanding separate theory; rather it informs your approach to such issues as death, which many therapists tend to shy away from.
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Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
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Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
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We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us.
IRVIN D. YALOM