American existential psychiatrist (1931- )
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. YALOM
interview, Salon Magazine
I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
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
Inpatient Group Psychotherapy
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. All these things I've written so much about. That's why I've made such a practice really, over and over to hammer home the point of self-revelation and being more of yourself and showing yourself. Every book I write I want to get that in there.
IRVIN D. YALOM
"Seven Questions for Irvin Yalom", Psychology Today, Mar. 25, 2009
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
"Seven Questions for Irvin Yalom", Psychology Today, Mar. 25, 2009
Epicurus is really kind of misunderstood by most people, who only know him through the word "epicurean," as someone who really delights in great food and wine, but that has really little to do with Epicurus. In fact, he's a fascinating character. As I say, if I was going to write a story, I'd begin another novel about him, because he believed that ... we're talking about 350 BC; he came just after Plato ... he believed that all of life's misery is really caused by our fear of death, and that the job of philosophy is to minister to human despair. So, he thought of philosophy as a kind of medicine for the soul; medicine for our inner selves.
IRVIN D. YALOM
interview, Wise Counsel
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
Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
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
Staring at the Sun
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
Existential Psychotherapy
Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don't leave any unlived life behind.
IRVIN D. YALOM
The Schopenhauer Cure
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
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
I'm Calling the Police
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
Existential Psychotherapy
Where I am, death is not; where death is, I am not.
IRVIN D. YALOM
Staring at the Sun
I feel strongly, because a man who will himself die one day in the not to distant future and, also, as a psychiatrist who spent decades dealing with death anxiety, that confronting death allows us, not to open some noisome, Pandora's box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
IRVIN D. YALOM
interview, Wise Counsel
Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
IRVIN D. YALOM
The Schopenhauer Cure
The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
IRVIN D. YALOM
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of 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
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept