Living safely is dangerous.
IRVIN D. YALOMTherapists need to have a long experience in personal therapy to see what it’s like to be on the other side of the couch and see what they find helpful or not helpful. And if possible, get into therapy at different stages of their life with different kinds of therapists just to sample a bit.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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Some piece of ourselves, not necessarily our consciousness, but some piece of ourselves gets passed on and on and on.
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When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
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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.
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I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.
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Pandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
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Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish.
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Hidden in disguise, leaking out in a variety of symptoms. It is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts.
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Specialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms.
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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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As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.
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Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
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This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.
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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.
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To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
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Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life!
IRVIN D. YALOM