“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)” ExistencePsychologySelf EsteemExistentialRemembrance Book:Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy Source: Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
“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.” ProcessPatientTerrorRelateEncountersIsolationExistentialConfrontationPsychoanalysisTherapistsBack AgainPsychotherapy Book:Existential Psychotherapy Source: Existential Psychotherapy
“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.” IssuesTheoryApproachTherapyShyExistentialTherapists Author:Irvin D. Yalom
“In a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown. This was due to a kind of increased existential awareness that resulted from this confrontation with the death of another. And I think it brought them in touch with their own death, so they began to experience a kind of preciousness to life that comes with an experience of its transiency.” ThinkingKindFoundLossNumbersGoneStudyAwarenessDuesExistentialImpressiveBereavementConfrontationWidowsWidowers Author:Irvin D. Yalom
