Irvin Yalom Quotes & Sayings

For one can never really be helped by another; one must find the strength to help oneself. — Irvin D. Yalom

I had come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one's death anxiety. My — Irvin D. Yalom

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. — Irvin D. Yalom

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. — Irvin D. Yalom

Marriage should be no prison, but a garden in which something higher is cultivated. — Irvin D. Yalom

A person of high, rare mental gifts who is forced into a job which is merely useful is like a valuable vase decorated with the most beautiful painting and then used as a kitchen pot. — Irvin D. Yalom

Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door. Mirroring, softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness. Hidden in disguise, leaking out in a variety of symptoms. It is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts. — Irvin D. Yalom

But the problem with crests is that they lead downhill. From the crest I can see all the rest of my years stretched out before me. And the view doesn't please me. I see only aging, diminishment, fathering, grandfathering." "But, — Irvin D. Yalom

Better, Josef, far better, to have the courage to change your convictions. Duty and faithfulness are shams, curtains to hide behind. Self-liberation means a sacred no, even to duty. — Irvin D. Yalom

Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence ... and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas. — Irvin D. Yalom

Reading these books. Oh, the endless labor of the intellectual - pouring all this knowledge into the brain through a three-millimeter aperture in the iris. — Irvin D. Yalom

Why, you may ask, take on this unpleasant, frightening subject? Why stare into the sun? Why not follow the advice of the venerable dean of American psychiatry, Adolph Meyer, who, a century ago, cautioned psychiatrists, 'Don't scratch where it doesn't itch'? Why grapple with the most terrible, the darkest and most unchangeable aspect of life? ... Death, however, DOES itch. It itches all the time; it is always with us, scratching at some inner door, whirring softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness. — Irvin D. Yalom

I wonder if you can ever be at home anywhere, because home is not a place
it's a state of mind. Really being at home is feeling at home in your own skin ... Perhaps you have been searching for home in the wrong place all your life. — Irvin D. Yalom

Fame, for example, consists of the opinions of others and requires that we must live our life as others wish. — Irvin D. Yalom

Specialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms. The drive for power is not uncommonly motivated by this dynamic. One's own fear and sense of limitation is avoided by enlarging oneself and one's sphere of control. There is some evidence, for example, that those who enter the death-related professions (soldiers, doctors, priests, and morticians) may in part be motivated by a need to obtain control over death anxiety. — Irvin D. Yalom

You say that imperishable happiness lies elsewhere. Tell me about this 'elsewhere.'" "I only know that it does not lie in perishable objects. It lies not outside but within. It is the mind that determines what is fearful, worthless, desirable, or priceless, and therefore it is the mind, and only the mind, that must be altered." "What — Irvin D. Yalom

Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a "giving to," not a 'falling for"; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person. — Irvin D. Yalom

Existential isolation, a third given, refers to the unbridgeable gap between self and others, a gap that exists even in the presence of deeply gratifying interpersonal relationships. — Irvin D. Yalom

If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic. — Irvin D. Yalom

The establishment of an authentic relationship with patients, by its very nature, demands that we forego the power of the triumvirate of magic, mystery, and authority. — Irvin D. Yalom

Do not mistake awkwardness for callousness. Remember, I am a solitary person, as I warned you. I'm not accustomed to easy and warm social exchange. — Irvin D. Yalom

If Epicurus were speaking to you at this moment, he would urge you to simplify life. Here's how he might put it if he were standing here today : Lads,your needs are few, they are easily attained, and any necessary suffering can be easily tolerated. Don't complicate your life with such trivial goals as riches and fame: they are the enemy of ATARAXIA. Fame,for example,consist of the opinions of
others and requires that we must live our life as other wish. To achieve and maintain fame, we must like what others like and shun whatever it is that they shun. Hence, a life of fame or a life in politics? Flee from it. And wealth? Avoid it! It is a trap. The more we acquire the more we crave, and the deeper our sadness when our yearning is not satisfied. Lads, listen to me: If you crave happiness, do not waste your life struggling for that which you really do not need. — Irvin D. Yalom

Freedom means that one is responsible for one's own choices, actions, one's own life situation. Though — Irvin D. Yalom

I think we ripple on into others, just like a stone puts its ripples into a brook. That, for me, too, is a source of comfort. It kind of, in a sense, negates the sense of total oblivion. Some piece of ourselves, not necessarily our consciousness, but some piece of ourselves gets passed on and on and on. — Irvin D. Yalom

Four major existential concerns - death, meaning in life, isolation, and freedom - play a crucial role in the inner life of every human being and — Irvin D. Yalom

How? It's obvious. You told me yourself, Lou is like your Bertha - she's an automaton, playing her role, the same role, with me, with you, with one man after the other. The particular man is incidental. She seduced both of us in the same way, with the same female deviousness, the same guile, the same gestures, the same promises!" "And yet this automaton controls you. She dominates your mind: you worry about her opinion, you pine for her touch." "No. No pining. No longer. What I feel now is rage. — Irvin D. Yalom

I wrote my first textbook in 1970. It was called 'The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy,' and over the years, many students told me that they enjoyed reading it because there were so many stories in there; often just a paragraph or a page of something that happened in a group session. — Irvin D. Yalom

Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation. A — Irvin D. Yalom

Hair and hole, horn and teeth - hedgehog, walrus, ape, Josef Breuer. He — Irvin D. Yalom

Like you, I have often wondered why fears reign at night. After twenty years of such wondering, I now believe that fears are not born of darkness; rather, fears are like the stars - always there, but obscured by the glare of daylight. "And — Irvin D. Yalom

Keep in mind that therapy is a deep and comprehensive exploration into the course and meaning of one's life; given the centrality of death in our existence, given that life and death are interdependent, how can we possibly ignore it? — Irvin D. Yalom

Do not pander, patronize, scheme, or strategize," his instincts told him. "Simply go about your business in your usual professional manner." "But — Irvin D. Yalom

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

more commonly death anxiety surfaces in nightmares. A — Irvin D. Yalom

Eternal recurrence means that every time you choose an action you must be willing to choose it for all eternity. And it is the same for every action not made, every stillborn thought, every choice avoided. And all unlived life will remain bulging inside you, unlived through all eternity. And the unheeded voice of your conscience will cry out to you forever. — Irvin D. Yalom

More than death, one fears the utter isolation that accompanies it. We try to go through life two by two, but each one of us must die alone- no one can die our death with us or for us. The shunning of the dying by the living prefigures final absolute abandonment — Irvin D. Yalom

I always imagined that you might write something about me. I wanted to leave an imprint on your life. I don't want to be "just another patient". I wanted to be "special". I want to be something, anything. I feel like nothing, no one. If I left an imprint on your life, maybe I would be someone, someone you wouldn't forget. I'd exist then. (Marge's letter to Yalom) — Irvin D. Yalom

The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely. — Irvin D. Yalom

I'm looking for me in you, that my hollowness makes it impossible to identify my needs and my desires, — Irvin D. Yalom

Let this idea take possession of you, and I promise that it will change you forever.
Do you love the idea or hate it?
Live in such a way that you love the idea.
Nietzsche's wager.
Consummate your life.
Die at the right time.
The courage to change your convictions!
This life is your eternal life. — Irvin D. Yalom

The flower replied: You fool! Do you imagine I blossom in order to be seen? I blossom for my own sake because it pleases me, and not for the sake of others. My joy consists in my being and my blossoming. — Irvin D. Yalom

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

Some said living with cancer had made them wiser, more self-realized, while others had reordered their priorities in life, grown stronger, learned to say no to activities they no longer valued and yes to things that really mattered - such as loving their family and friends, observing the beauty about them, savoring the changing seasons. — Irvin D. Yalom

One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety. — Irvin D. Yalom

I explain to my patients that abused children often find it hard to disentangle themselves from their dysfunctional families, whereas children grow away from good, loving parents with far less conflict. After all, isn't that the task of a good parent, to enable the child to leave home? — Irvin D. Yalom

So the highest and the happiest of endeavors is to be a philosopher ? Doesn't it seem self-serving for a philosopher to make that claim? — Irvin D. Yalom

As a general rule, the less one's sense of life fulfillment, the greater one's death anxiety. — Irvin D. Yalom

Ask yourself, 'Who are the secure ones, the comfortable, the eternally cheerful?' I'll tell you the answer: only those with dull vision-the common people and the children — Irvin D. Yalom

He was persuaded of the reality and significance of human choice; he believed that experiential learning was a far more powerful approach to personal understanding and change than an endeavor resting upon intellectual understanding; he believed that individuals have within themselves an actualizing tendency, an inbuilt proclivity toward growth and fulfillment. — Irvin D. Yalom

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

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

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

She may have played her role, but you, what role did you play? Were you, and I, so different from her? Did you see her? Or did you, instead, see only prey--a disciple, a plowland for your thoughts, a successor? Or perhaps, like me, you saw beauty, youth a satin pillow, a vessel into which to drain your lust. — Irvin D. Yalom

Were you really, truly, helpful to your patients? Maybe you've just learned to pick patients who were going to improve on their own anyway. — Irvin D. Yalom

I dream of a love in which two people share a passion to search together for some higher truth. Perhaps I should not call it love. Perhaps it's real name is friendship. — Irvin D. Yalom

To build children you must first be built yourself. Otherwise, you'll seek children out of animal needs, or loneliness, or to patch the holes in yourself. Your task as a parent is to produce not another self, another Josef, but something higher. It's to produce a creator. — Irvin D. Yalom

During my childhood, Washington was a segregated city, and I lived in the midst of a poor black neighborhood. Life on the streets was often perilous. Indoor reading was my refuge, and twice a week, I made the hazardous bicycle trek to the central library at Seventh and K streets to stock up on supplies. — Irvin D. Yalom

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

Some cannot loosen their own chains and can nonetheless redeem their friends. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes? - Thus Spake Zarathustra — Irvin D. Yalom

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

Empathy: Looking Out the Patient's Window — Irvin D. Yalom

At other times Betty expressed anger at my forcing her to think about morbid topics. "Why think about death? We can't do anything about it!" I tried to help her understand that, though the fact of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us. In other words, our awareness of death can throw a different perspective on life and incite us to rearrange our priorities. — Irvin D. Yalom

With almost every book I've written, my secret target audience is the young therapist. In this way, I am staying in my professorial role; I'm writing teaching stories and teaching novels. — Irvin D. Yalom

Absolutely, bring any kind of carrot cake you wish. — Irvin D. Yalom

The freedom of an unscheduled afternoon brought confusion rather than joy. Julius had always been focused. When he was not seeing patients, other important projects and activities-writing, teaching, tennis, research-clamored for his attention. But today nothing seemed important. He suspected that nothing had ever been important, that his mind had arbitrarily imbued projects with importance and then cunningly covered its traces. Today he saw through the ruse of a lifetime. Today there was nothing important to do, and he ambled aimlessly down Union Street. — Irvin D. Yalom

If one is to learn to live with the dead, one must first learn to live with the living! — Irvin D. Yalom

He who would be everything cannot be anything.) — Irvin D. Yalom

their breasts swelling into powerful, magical globes - when he was overcome by an extraordinary craving to merge with their bodies, to suckle at their nipples, to slip into their warmth and wetness. — Irvin D. Yalom

The amount of death terror experienced is closely related to the amount of life unlived. — Irvin D. Yalom

From the very early days of seeing patients, I noticed that many of them seemed to be concerned with issues of their mortality, and so the philosophy training I had taken began to seem rather important to me. — Irvin D. Yalom

To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible. — Irvin D. Yalom

Have you ever noticed that the air you breathe in is always cooler than the air you breathe out? — Irvin D. Yalom

At the end of his life, no man, if he be sincere and in possession of his faculties, would ever wish to go though it again. Rather than this, he will much prefer to choose complete nonexistence. — Irvin D. Yalom

I believe that a different therapy must be constructed for each patient because each has a unique story. — Irvin D. Yalom

From the beginning, of course, I had known that the pure forcefulness of my argument would not penetrate deep enough to effect any change. It almost never does. It's never worked for me when I've been in therapy. Only when one feels an insight in one's bones does one own it. Only then can one act on it and change. Pop psychologists forever talk about "responsibility assumption," but it's all words: it is extraordinarily hard, even terrifying, to own the insight that you and only you construct your own life design. Thus, the problem in therapy is always how to move from an ineffectual intellectual appreciation of a truth about oneself to some emotional experience of it. It is only when therapy enlists deep emotions that it becomes a powerful force for change. And powerlessness was — Irvin D. Yalom

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

Sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past. — Irvin D. Yalom

My work is to love my body, all of it. Whole and entire. The whole aging mortal troublesome failing miraculous intricate breathing doomed cancerous warm mortifying unreliable hard-working imperfect beautiful appalling living struggling tender frightened frightening living dying living breathing temporary wondrous mystifying afflicted mortally-ill assemblage of the atoms of the universe that is my self, is me, for this space of time. — Irvin D. Yalom

One reason patients are reluctant to work in a therapy group is they fear that things will go too far, that the powerful therapist or the collective group might coerce them to lose control
to say or think or feel things that will be catastrophic. The therapist can make the group feel safer by allowing each patient to set his or her limits and by emphasizing the patient's control over every interaction. — Irvin D. Yalom

To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another. — Irvin D. Yalom

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

Perhaps," said Nietzsche, "only by being a man does a man release the woman in woman. — Irvin D. Yalom

Love obsession often serves as a distraction, keeping the individual's gaze from more painful thoughts. — Irvin D. Yalom

I'm not ready for a committed relationship with anyone and that I have a ton of work to do on myself. — Irvin D. Yalom

The more the therapist is able to tolerate the anxiety of not knowing, the less need there is for the therapist to embrace orthodoxy. — Irvin D. Yalom

One must learn to live with the living before one can learn to live with the dead. — Irvin D. Yalom

Every person must choose how much truth he can stand. — Irvin D. Yalom

Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death. — Irvin D. Yalom

Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us. — Irvin D. Yalom

Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one's life! — Irvin D. Yalom

will that which is necessary and then to love that which is willed. — Irvin D. Yalom

I hate it that she has so insinuated herself into the interstices of my mind that I can never root her out. And most of all, I hate that at the end of my life I feel compelled to ask, "How'd I do, Mama?". — Irvin D. Yalom

Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it. — Irvin D. Yalom

Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer — Irvin D. Yalom

He was saying, fulfill yourself, realize your potential, live boldly and fully. Then, and only then, die without regret. — Irvin D. Yalom

Surely this sense of betrayal is what Robert Frost had in mind when he wrote: "Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee/And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me." io — Irvin D. Yalom

Live when you live! Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one's life! If one does not live in the right time, then one can never die at the right time. — Irvin D. Yalom

[T]he act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help. — Irvin D. Yalom

Truth," Nietzsche continued, "is arrived at through disbelief and skepticism, not through a childlike wishing something were so! Your patient's wish to be in God's hands is not truth. It is simply a child's wish - and nothing more! It is a wish not to die, a wish for the eveastingly bloated nipple we have labeled 'God'! Evolutionary theory scientifically demonstrates God's redundancy - though Darwin himself had not the courage to follow his evidence to its true conclusion. Surely, you must realize that we created God, and that all of us together now have killed him. — Irvin D. Yalom

Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don't leave any unlived life behind. — Irvin D. Yalom