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. YALOMHe 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)
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
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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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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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A sense of life meaning ensues but cannot be deliberately pursued: life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
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Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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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Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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. YALOM -
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 -
It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death’s terror.
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Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
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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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Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
IRVIN D. YALOM