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
children family full kinds life linked meanings ourselves passing people transcend
I think all kinds of meanings in life transcend your self. They're linked to other generations of people around us, to our children and our family. We're passing on something of ourselves to others. I feel that's what makes our life full of meaning.
persons
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
dream disappointment people
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.
pain growth want
If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
two darkness sparks
Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.
decision anxiety territory
The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
self forever treasure
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.
dream two people
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
dangerous
Living safely is dangerous.
doe find-me universe
Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
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.
long needs sides
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.
issues shy existential
One doesn't do existential therapy as a freestanding separate theory; rather it informs your approach to such issues as death, which many therapists tend to shy away from.
dream teaching people
Were not teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, how you examine the inner world, how you examine your dreams.