Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living. Irvin D. Yalom More Quotes by Irvin D. Yalom More Quotes From Irvin D. Yalom It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one's germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness! Irvin D. Yalom loneliness children needs Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one's life! Irvin D. Yalom terror dies death 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 age mind looks Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude. Irvin D. Yalom anxiety mother way The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety. Irvin D. Yalom anxiety greater You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach. Irvin D. Yalom community ignorance long The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety. Irvin D. Yalom anxiety decision path 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. 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. Since 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. Yalom brotherhood rivers thinking Therapists 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. Irvin D. Yalom sides long needs If I had to pick out a therapist in a movie that I'd like to go see as a personal therapist, it would be Robin Williams in Goodwill Hunting. Irvin D. Yalom hunting would-be robins 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 long-ago easier patient 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 isolation encounters patient 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, when we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves Irvin D. Yalom derivatives meaning-of-life forgotten To the extent that one is responsible for one's life, one is alone. Irvin D. Yalom responsible 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. This 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. Yalom loss numbers thinking To the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience. Indeed, 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. Yalom groups strong would-be Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind. Irvin D. Yalom anxiety mind death Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world. And if you do the latter, you're not so worried about the everyday trivialities of life, for example, petty concerns about secrecy or privacy. Irvin D. Yalom everyday way world I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws. Irvin D. Yalom claws Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual. 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 fate stars power
