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Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.

Irvin D. Yalom

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Irvin D. Yalom
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: June 13
Author
Existential Therapist
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
University Teacher
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Irvin David Yalom
Physicality
Destroys
Save
Though
Idea
Death
May
Ideas

More quotes by Irvin D. Yalom

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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.
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If we look at life in its small details, how ridiculous it all seems. It is like a drop of water seen through a microscope, a single drop teeming with protozoa. How we laugh as they bustle about so eagerly and struggle with one another. Whether here, or in the little span of human life, this terrible activity produces a comic effect
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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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Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. 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.
Irvin D. Yalom
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One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
Irvin D. Yalom
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A curious thought experiment. . . Nietzsche's message to us was to live life in such a way that we would be willing to repeat the same life eternally
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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. Some have expressed the very opposite feeling--the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
Irvin D. Yalom
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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.
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Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
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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
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The death anxiety of many people is fueled ... by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential. 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. A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
Irvin D. Yalom
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To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
Irvin D. Yalom
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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
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The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
Irvin D. Yalom
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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
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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
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Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
Irvin D. Yalom
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To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
Irvin D. Yalom
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... sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
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Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I'm still learning.
Irvin D. Yalom