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A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.

Irvin D. Yalom

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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Always Creep Experience Helplessness Indeed Morality Reality
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

Book Future Idea might None Part Patient Reality Say Some Trouble
Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead – when I exist in no one’s memory.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alive Day Dead Ever Exist Forty Known Memory No One Perhaps Some Soon Truly Years
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Everybody Know Other Seen Some Therapy Think You
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

Critical Isolation Process Psychotherapy Relationship Terror Therapist
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Against Believe Cheer Comfort Illusion Magic Quarry Think Though
Mirroring, softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Barely Consciousness Just Membrance Mirror Softly Under
When we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves
IRVIN D. YALOM

Absorbed Become Forgotten Ourselves Outside Someone Something
He had learned long ago that, in general, the easier it was for anxious patients to reach him, the less likely they were to call. (107)
IRVIN D. YALOM

Ago Anxious Easier General Learn Less Long Patient Person Reach Viall
The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Death Fail Fear Fully Life More
I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Cluster Individual Known Last Live Old People Person Some Someone Thought
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Cease Climb Enough Height Loo Reach Tragedy Tragic We
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Approach Death Existence Frestand Issue Ratherminform Separate Theory Therapy
In a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Back Bereavement Found Gone Impressive Number Old Rather Simply Study Widow Windower
Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Field Finish Medicine Other Psychiatry Really Straight Unlike
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Apprehenf As Reach Before Crest Death Downward Life Longer Look Mind Path Slope Toward

A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming 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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