Irvin D. Yalom
Irvin D. Yalom
Irvin David Yalomis an American existential psychiatrist who is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, as well as author of both fiction and nonfiction...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth13 June 1931
CountryUnited States of America
responsible
To the extent that one is responsible for one's life, one is alone.
mind age looks
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.
long-ago patient easier
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)
encounters patient isolation
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.
thinking miserable life-is
Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
mean care individual
To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
ideas may physicality
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
ignorance long community
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.
anxiety greater
The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
strong would-be adequacy
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.
derivatives meaning-of-life forgotten
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
marriage spirit entourage
Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
life important therapeutic
Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
children loneliness needs
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!