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Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy

Book by Irvin D. Yalom · 3 quotes · Psychology, Death, Moarte

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Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy Quotes

“Decisions are difficult for many reasons, some reaching down into the very socket of being. John Gardner, in his novel Grendel, tells of a wise man who sums up his meditation on life’s mysteries in two simple but terrible postulates: “Things fade: alternatives exclude.” Of the first postulate, death, I have already spoken. The second, “alternatives exclude,” is an important key to understanding why decision is difficult. Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide). Thus, Thelma clung to the infinitesimal chance that she might once again revive her relationship with her lover, renunciation of that possibility signifying diminishment and death.”

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“But he gave no greater gift than the one he offered me shortly before he died, and it was a gift that answers for all time the question of whether it is rational or appropriate to strive for “ambitious” therapy in those who are terminally ill. When I visited him in the hospital he was so weak he could barely move, but he raised his head, squeezed my hand, and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you for saving my life.”

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