Living safely is dangerous.
IRVIN D. YALOMLiving safely is dangerous.
IRVIN D. YALOMLive right, he reminded himself, and have faith that good things will flow from you even if you never learn of them.
IRVIN D. YALOMSome have expressed the very opposite feeling–the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
IRVIN D. YALOMThere 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. YALOMHeidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world.
IRVIN D. YALOMSince 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. YALOMDeath, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
IRVIN D. YALOMThis was due to a kind of increased existential awareness that resulted from this confrontation with the death of another. And I think it brought them in touch with their own death, so they began to experience a kind of preciousness to life that comes with an experience of its transiency.
IRVIN D. YALOMPsychotherapy 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. YALOMThere are borderlines and there are borderlines. Labels do violence to people. You can’t treat the label; you have to treat the person behind the label. (17)
IRVIN D. YALOMSpecialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms.
IRVIN D. YALOMIndeed, the evidence supporting the efficacy of group therapy, and the prevailing sentiment of the mental health profession, are sufficiently strong that it would be difficult to defend the adequacy of the inpatient unit that attempted to operate without a small group program.
IRVIN D. YALOMIf we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
IRVIN D. YALOMOnly 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. YALOMWhen 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. YALOMI never want to take away something when I don’t have anything better to offer him in a way.
IRVIN D. YALOM