Irvin David Yalom, M.D., is an author of fiction and nonfiction, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, an existentialist, and accomplished psychotherapist.
LADY, THREE WHITE LEOPARDS SAT UNDER A JUNIPER TREE IN THE COOL OF THE DAY HAVING FED TO SATIETY ON MY LEGS, MY HEART AND MY LIVER AND THAT WHICH WAS CONTAINED IN THE HOLLOW ROUND OF MY SKULL. AND GOD SAID, SHALL THESE BONES LIVE? SHALL THESE BONES LIVE? T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday
Irvin Yalom is right.
We have to stare fixedly at the blazing sun of our mortality - as Merseault did on the beach, in Camus鈥� The Stranger - for it changes him.
And it can change us.
But ONLY if we daily, and in sometimes excruciating anguish, CLIMB THE WALL OF THAT ACT鈥橲 FREE ABSURDITY - to our own Freedom.
A freedom that is incessantly challenged in a bitter world...
You know, when I was seven, I read a fable in Dr. Marius Barbeau鈥檚 children鈥檚 masterpiece, the Golden Phoenix, about three French knights who must gallop up a mountain made of pure glass, to rescue an imperilled princess. Only one of 鈥榚m makes it.
That story was me - because I saw the struggle of my life at home and in Grade Two math as a sheer, impassable glass mountain. Being mildly autistic, I felt I was being rudely and savagely awakened from my dreams.
Did YOU ever get the feeling that the world was doing that to you?
Well, I鈥檝e got news for you - and for me, still struggling at seventy, and not facing the facts:
The world is RIGHT.
And the way to existential freedom - past all its bullies - is STRAIGHT UP THE MIDDLE.
And Yalom doesn鈥檛 seem to be doing that.
Oh, he talks a good story, but is that the point of BEARING THE SUN鈥橲 INTENSITY? Perhaps the good that comes from it is found by submitting to its blaze of Truth unremittingly, as did Albert Camus.
The point is not that our comforts become more comforting by bearing the sun, but surely it is that our Truths become less entangled in the world鈥檚 convenient Lies!
So how come Mr Yalom never mentions staring at the sun of moral depravity? Because that's an even taller order...
As Camus and Eliot tell us, the pain and anxiety of going straight up the middle in life bear the fruits of Lasting Peace within Ultimate Simplicity.
And of a real, unvarnished Life.
Just as Merseault could now face his death with pure equanimity...
鈥淚 do not intend this to be a somber book. Instead, it is my hope that by grasping, really grasping, our human condition鈥攐ur finiteness, our brief time in the light鈥攚e will come not only to savor the preciousness of each moment and the pleasure of sheer being but to increase our compassion for ourselves and for all other human beings.鈥�
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death (2008), Irvin D. Yalom
Over the past quarter century Irvin Yalom has established himself as the world's leading group psychotherapist.
In Staring at the Sun, Yalom explores how the knowledge of our own mortality affects the unconscious mind of every human being.
Tackling the effect of mankind's fear of death - both conscious and unconscious - on life and how we might live it, Yalom explains how we find ourselves in need of the comfort of therapy.
At age 70 and facing his own fear of death, which he discusses in a special afterword, Dr Yalom tackles his toughest subject yet and finds it to be the root cause of patients' fears, stresses and depression.
If therapists are to deliver 'the gift of therapy', they must confront the realities of life for themselves and their practice, as must we all.
Though a very special view (Epicurist) of the ageing process and the challenges man and woman face throughout (death included), it's a very important book for any psychotherapist, regardless of the philosophical or psychotherapy school espoused.
Yalom cites plenty of clinical cases, including his personal record: as child (his view on Religion), as therapist (his masters,...W.H. Bion, namely) and himself (as father, husband...)... ageing.
UPDATE
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[the meaning of EXISTENTIAL THERAPY...and the Truman Capote joke]
[the psychotherapy process]
[the role of the psychotherapist's personality and self-revelation in the process]
[anxiety-of-death-case approached]
[terror of death]
["existential" writers:Dostoevsky,Tolstoy and Dickens;Buffalo Bill's,poem by E.E. Cummings]
[2001, Kubrick's movie and Epicurus Philosophy 341鈥�270 B.C.]
[Hypnos and Thanatos as twins;childhood, adolescence, adulthood, midlife views on death]
[magical thinking, love...and: Yalom has been reading SPINOZA]
It's hard to go wrong with Yalom. Great book on death anxiety. In the couple of years before reading this book I had 4 acquaintances in their early 40's, all with young children, die of cancer. Having young kids myself, I was really starting to worry about an untimely death of my own. I wouldn't say reading this book fixed all that, because hey, none of us knows how long we have, but this was a good exploration of the topic.
I read this about a year ago and had quit putting reviews up on 欧宝娱乐 because I didn't want a friend to know I hadn't read his book yet but was still managing to read other books (sorry!), but I had typed up sections I wanted to remember and I'm surprised now to go back and see how extensive my notes are. Here they are if you want a feel for the book, or at least the parts I connected with:
p. 32 The Stoics (Chrysippus, Zeno, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius) taught us that learning to live well is learning to die well and vice versa.
p. 49 鈥淲hat precisely do you fear about death?鈥� --鈥淎ll the things I would have not done.鈥� A theme of great importance: the positive correlation between the fear of death and the sense of unlived life.
p. 50 Nietzsche鈥斺€淐onsummate your life鈥� 鈥淒ie at the right time鈥� Zorba the Greek 鈥� 鈥淟eave death nothing but a burned out castle鈥�
p. 93 John Gardener in Grendel鈥斺€淓verything fades: alternatives exclude鈥� For every yes there must be a no, and every positive choice means you have to relinquish others. Many of us shrink from fully apprehending the limits, diminishment, and loss that are riveted to existence.
p. 95 The belief that life is a perpetual upward spiral often arises in psychotherapy. The alternative is hard to bear鈥攖hat each of us is finite and destined to traverse the passage from infancy and childhood through maturity to ultimate decline.
p. 96 鈥淲hen we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago鈥濃€擭ietzsche People undergo regression as a response to trauma. Inner demons once conquered are conquered once again. Good ideas, even ideas of power, are rarely sufficient in a single shot: repeated doses are necessary. 鈥淟iving the identical life, over and over again, for all eternity鈥濃€擭ietzsche The idea of eternal recurrence. Zarathustra poses a challenge: what if you were to live the identical life again and again throughout eternity鈥攈ow would that change you? What if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 鈥淭his life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence鈥攅ven this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!鈥� Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 鈥淵ou are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.鈥� If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you.
p. 100 No positive change can occur in your life as long as you cling to the thought that the reason for your not living well lies outside yourself. As long as you place responsibility entirely on others who treat you unfairly鈥攁 loutish husband, a demanding and unsupportive boss, bad genes, irresistible compulsions鈥攖hen your situation will remain at an impasse. You and you alone are responsible for the crucial aspects of your life situation, and only you have the power to change it. And even if you face overwhelming external restraints, you still have the freedom and the choice of adopting various attitudes toward those restraints. One of Nietzsche鈥檚 favorite phrases is amor fati (love your fate): in other words, create the fate that you can love.
p. 101 If you engage in this experiment and find the thought painful or even unbearable, there is one obvious explanation: you do not believe you鈥檝e lived your life well. I would proceed by posing such questions as, How have you not lived well? What regrets do you have about your life? My purpose is not to drown anyone in a sea of regrets for the past but, ultimately, to turn his or her gaze toward the future and this potentially life-changing question: What can you do now in your life so that one year or five years from now, you won鈥檛 look back and have similar dismay about the new regrets you鈥檝e accumulated? In other words, can you find a way to live without continuing to accumulate regrets?
p. 104 鈥淏ecome who you are鈥� 鈥揘ietzsche (familiar to Aristotle and passed on through Spinoza, Leibnitz, Goethe, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Karen Horney, Abraham Maslow, and the 1960鈥檚 human potential movement, down to our contemporary idea of self-realization. The concept of becoming 鈥渨ho you are鈥� is closely connected to other Nietzsche pronouncements, 鈥淐onsummate your life鈥� and 鈥淒ie at the right time.鈥� In all these variants Nietzsche exhorted us to avoid unlived life. He was saying, fulfill yourself, realize your potential, live boldly and fully. Then, and only then, die without regret.
p. 108 鈥淪ome refuse the loan of life to avoid the debt of death鈥濃€擮tto Rank Individuals who numb themselves and avoid entering life with gusto because of the dread of losing too much.
p. 110 Otto Rank posited a useful dynamic, an ongoing tension between 鈥渓ife anxiety鈥� and 鈥渄eath anxiety,鈥� which may be exceedingly useful to the therapist. In his view, a developing person strives for individuation, growth, and fulfillment of his or her potential. But there is a cost! In emerging, expanding, and standing out from nature, an individual encounters life anxiety, a frightening loneliness, a feeling of vulnerability, a loss of basic connection with a greater whole. When this life anxiety becomes unbearable, what do we do? We take a different direction: we go backward; we retreat from separateness and find comfort in merger鈥攖hat is, in fusing with and giving oneself up to the other. Yet despite its comfort and coziness, the solution of merger is unstable: ultimately one recoils from the loss of the unique self and sense of stagnation. Thus, merger gives rise to 鈥渄eath anxiety.鈥� Between these two poles鈥攍ife anxiety and death anxiety, or individuation and merger鈥攑eople shuttle back and forth their entire lives. This formulation ultimately became the spine of Ernest Becker鈥檚 extraordinary book, The Denial of Death.
p. 112 Schopenhauer鈥檚 triplet of essays: what a man is, what a man has, what a man represents
1. What we have. Material goods are a will-o鈥�-the-wisp. Schopenhauer argues elegantly that the accumulation of wealth and goods is endless and unsatisfying; the more we possess, the more our claims multiply. Wealth is like seawater: the more we drink, the thirstier we become. In the end, we don鈥檛 have our goods鈥攖hey have us. 2. What we represent in the eyes of others. Reputation is as evanescent as material wealth. Schopenhauer writes, 鈥淗alf our worries and anxieties have arisen from our concern about the opinions of others鈥e must extract this thorn from our flesh.鈥� So powerful is the urge to create a good appearance that some prisoners have gone to their execution with their clothing and final gestures foremost in their thoughts. The opinion of others is a phantasm that may alter at any moment. Opinions hang by a thread and make us slaves to what others think or, worse, to what they appear to think鈥攆or we can never know what they actually think. 3. What we are. It is only what we are that truly matters. A good conscience, Schopenhauer says, means more than a good reputation. Our greatest goal should be good health and intellectual wealth, which lead to an inexhaustible supply of ideas, independence, and a moral life. Inner equanimity stems from knowing that it is not things that disturb us, but our interpretations of things.
This last idea鈥攖hat the quality of our life is determined by how we interpret our experiences, not by the experiences themselves鈥攊s an important therapeutic doctrine dating back to antiquity. A central tenet in the school of Stoicism, it passed through Zeno, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, to become a fundamental concept in both dynamic and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Such ideas as the Epicurean arguments, rippling, the avoidance of the unlived life, and emphasis on authenticity in the aphorisms I cite all have usefulness in combating death anxiety. But the power of all these ideas is greatly enhanced by one other component鈥攊ntimate connection to others鈥攖o which I turn in the next chapter.
p. the play Everyman, where he tries and fails to convince someone to accompany him into death. Finally Good Deeds agrees. You can take with you from this world nothing that you have received; you can take only what you have given.
p. 137 In a terminal cancer support group, 鈥淚 have decided that there is, after all, something that I can still offer. I can offer an example of how to die. I can set a model for my children and my friends by facing death with courage and dignity.鈥�
p. 138 Socrates believed that the best course for a teacher鈥攁nd, let me add, a friend鈥攊s to ask questions that will help a student excavate his or her own wisdom.
鈥淚 realized that if we all must die, nothing had any point鈥攎y piano lessons, my making my bed perfectly, my gold stars at school鈥︹€�
鈥淛ill, you have a young daughter who鈥檚 about nine. Imagine that she asked, 鈥業f we are going to die, then why or how should we live?鈥� How would you answer?鈥�
Unhesitatingly she replied, 鈥淚鈥檇 tell her about the many joys of living, the beauty of the forests, the pleasure of being with friends and family, the bliss of spreading love to others and of leaving the world a better place.鈥�
After finishing, she leaned back in her chair and opened her eyes wide, astonished at her own words, as though to say, 鈥淲here did that come from?鈥�
鈥淕reat answer, Jill. You鈥檝e got so much wisdom inside. This is not the first time you鈥檝e arrived at a great truth when you imagine advising your daughter about life. Now you need to learn to be your own mother.鈥�
The task, then, is not to offer answers, but to find a way to help others discover their own answers.
The same principle operated in the treatment of Julia, the psychotherapist and painter, whose death anxiety stemmed from her not having fully realized herself and neglecting her art in order to compete with her husband in earning money. I applied the same strategy in our work when I asked her to assume a distant perspective by suggesting she imagine how she鈥檚 respond to a client who behaved as she did. Julia鈥檚 instantaneous comment鈥斺€淚鈥檇 say to her, you are living a life of absurdity!鈥濃€攕ignaled that she needed only the slightest guidance to discover her own wisdom. Therapists have always operated under the assumption that the truth one discovers for oneself has far greater power than a truth delivered by others.
p. 144 My work with Jack was also sprinkled with attempts to help him locate and revitalize neglected parts of himself, ranging from his poetic gifts to his thirst for an intimate social network. Therapists realize that it is generally better to try to help a client remove the obstacles to self-actualization than to rely on suggestions or encouragement or exhortation. I also tried to reduce Jack鈥檚 isolation, not by pointing out the social opportunities available to him, but instead by focusing on the major obstacles to intimate friendships: his shame and belief that others would regard him as a foolish man. And, of course, his leap into intimacy with me was a major step: isolation only exists in isolation; once shared, it evaporates.
The Value of Regret Regret has been given a bad name. Although it usually connotes irredeemable sadness, it can be used in a constructive manner. In fact, of all the methods I use to help myself and others examine self-realization, the idea of regret鈥攂oth creating and avoiding it鈥攊s most valuable. Properly used, regret is a tool that can help you take actions to prevent its further accumulation. You can examine regret both by looking behind and by looking ahead. If you turn your gaze toward the past, you experience regret for all that you have not fulfilled. If you turn your gaze toward the future, you experience the possibility of either amassing more regret or living relatively free of it. I often counsel myself and my patients to imagine one year or five years ahead and think of the new regrets that will have piled up in that period. Then I pose a question that has real therapeutic crunch: 鈥淗ow can you live now without building new regrets? What do you have to change in your life?鈥�
p. 147 The way to value life, the way to feel compassion for others, the way to love anything with greater depth is to be aware that these experiences are destined to be lost.
p. 164 Therapy offers opportunities par excellence for rippling. In every hour of work, I am able to pass along parts of myself, parts of what I have learned about life.
p. 165 Yalom鈥檚 mentors鈥擩erome Frank, John Whitehorn, and Rollo May. May鈥檚 book Existence. (especially the first 3 essays).
p. 197 One half of my conscious screen is sober and always aware of transience. The other half, however, offsets it by playing a different show, a scenario I can best describe by a metaphor suggested by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who asks us to imagine a laser-thin spotlight moving inexorably along the immense ruler of time. Everything that the beam has passed is lost in darkness of the past; everything ahead fo the spotlight is hidden in the darkness of the yet to be born. Only what is lit by the laser-thin spotlight lives. This image dispels grimness and evokes in me the thought of how staggeringly lucky I am to be here, alive, and luxuriating in the pleasure of sheer being! And how tragically foolish it would be to diminish my brief time in the life-light by adopting life-negating schemes which proclaim that real life is to be found elsewhere in the utterly indifferent immense darkness ahead of me.
p. 215 Note the two instances during the session when I shifted into the here-and-now. Mark began the hour by saying that 鈥渁s usual鈥� on the way to my office he had slipped into an enchanting reverie about his patient, Ruth. That comment obviously had implications for our relationship. I stored it and, later in the session, inquired about why, on the way to see me, he habitually obsesses about Ruth. Later Mark posed several questions to me about my death anxiety and about my children, and I responded to each question, but made sure of taking the next step of exploring his feelings about posing questions to me and about my answering them. Therapy is always an alternating sequence of interaction and reflection upon that interaction. Finally, the session with Mark illustrates the synergy between ideas and relationship: both factors were at work in this session, as in most therapy sessions.
Terence, a second-century Roman playwright, offers an aphorism that is extraordinarily important in the inner work of the therapist: I am human, and nothing human is alien to me. Thus, at the end of the session when Mark gathered the courage to ask a question he had long suppressed鈥斺€淗ow do you judge me as a therapist for the whole Ruth episode?鈥濃€擨 chose to answer that I could empathize with him because I鈥檝e also at times been sexually aroused by patients. I added that this was also true of every therapist I鈥檝e ever known. Mark posed an uncomfortable question, but, when faced with it, I followed Terence鈥檚 maxim and searched my own mind for some similar recollection and then shared it. No matter how brutal, cruel, forbidden, or alien a patient鈥檚 experience, you can locate in yourself some affinity to it if you are willing to enter into your own darkness.
p. 217 Up to now, I have for pedagogical reasons discussed ideas and relationship separately, but it is time to put them together. First, a fundamental axiom: ideas will be effective only when the therapeutic alliance is solid.
p. 243 I believe that a therapist has everything to gain and nothing to lose by being entirely transparent about the process of therapy. Considerable persuasive research in both individual and group therapy has documented that therapists who systematically and thoroughly prepare patients for therapy have better outcomes. As for transference, I believe it is a hardy organism and will grow robustly even in broad daylight. So I am personally transparent about the mechanism of therapy. I tell patients about how therapy works, about my role in the process, and, most important of all, what they can do to facilitate their own therapy. If it seems indicated, I have no hesitation about suggesting selected publications about therapy. I make a point of clarifying the here-and-now focus and, even in the first session, ask about how the patient and I are doing in it. I ask such questions as 鈥淲hat expectations you have of me? How do I fit or not fit those expectations? Do we seem on track? Do you have feelings about me that we should explore? I follow such questions by saying something like this: 鈥淵ou鈥檒l find that I do this often. I ask such here-and-now questions because I believe that the exploration of our relationship will provide us valuable and accurate information. You can tell me about issues arising with friends or your boss or your spouse, but always there is a limitation: I don鈥檛 know them, and you can鈥檛 help but give me information that reflects your own bias. We all do that; we can鈥檛 help it. But what goes on here in this office is reliable because we both experience and can work on that information immediately.鈥� All my patients have understood this explanation and accepted it.
Open the door a crack on their personal life, some therapists fear, and patients will relentlessly ask for more. 鈥淗ow happy are you? How is your marriage going? Your social life? Your sexual life?鈥� This is, in my experience, a bogus fear. Although I encourage patients to ask questions, no patient has ever insisted on knowing uncomfortably intimate details of my life. If that were to happen, I would respond by focusing on the process; that is, I would inquire about the patient鈥檚 motivation in pressing or embarrassing me. Again, I emphasize to therapists, reveal yourself when it enhances therapy, not because of pressure from the patient or because of your own needs or rules.
Some smart person, back in the early days of Amazon decided that, while books should be rated on a five-point scale, reviews should be either 鈥榰seful鈥� or 鈥榥ot useful鈥�. Good idea. Something that helps you decide to buy or not-a perfectly binary process-should be judged in a similarly binary fashion. Either it helps or it doesn鈥檛.
A book that makes the immodest claim of helping the reader overcome the terror of death can probably best be judged the same way. Did it help or not?
In spite of the claim on the cover, most of this book is devoted to Dr. Yalom鈥檚 assertion that it is the fear of death that鈥檚 at the root of all neurosis. This stands in competition with Freud鈥檚 claim that it鈥檚 all about sex. Now, even though death is nowhere near as much fun to think about as sex, the argument is intuitively persuasive. Ignoring the obvious can鈥檛 lead you anywhere good. Yalom鈥檚 efforts to use this insight in therapy seem both wise and efficacious. The awareness of the inevitability of death is, or at least can be the spur to enjoying life. 鈥楧eath鈥� as a buddy of mine used to say 鈥榠s your friend鈥�. The second part of the book-devoted to overcoming one鈥檚 own terror is grounded not in therapy, but in philosophy. Specifically, Yalom focuses on the Epicureans and vehemently denies the efficacy of spiritual systems. Then he points to the value of reminding oneself that impermanence is immanent in the universe: Everything changes. But that observation is at the heart of Buddhism, one of the world鈥檚 most venerable spiritual traditions. In fact, there鈥檚 nothing in Yalom鈥檚 consoling philosophy that doesn鈥檛 already exist in this religion. But Yalom鈥檚 Buddhism is pretty thin emotional gruel. He allows that 鈥榯he way to value life, the way to feel compassion for others, the way to love anything with greatest depth is to be awware that these experiences are destined to be lost鈥�. He stops short of suggesting that perhaps there is reincarnation or perhaps the death of the self is a necessary prelude to another kind of being. In the end (so to speak) Yalom shies away from any advice other than the acceptance of the inevitable. Yes, death is a good reminder about how to live a life, but Yalom leaves the reader unconvinced that life alone can silence the noisy terror of death. But being reminded to live, here and now and in the best way one can at least puts death in its place. So: is helpful or not? Yes, it鈥檚 helpful, a tonic for the spirit. But taken with a liberal dose of the Compassionate Buddha, it might be even more effective.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the novel bang BANG. ISBN 9781601640005
I have so much love for Irvin Yalom and I owe him a great debt for giving me the courage to begin my application essay to graduate school. I decided to name drop him in the opening paragraph of that piece, which terrifies me when I look back. Why in the lord鈥檚 name did I do that? Irvin Yalom discusses things rarely mentioned in APA and CPA approved clinical psychology programs. Existential therapy? Dreams? Death? Yeesh. To be fair, he also discusses many things that are taught by the caring therapist-professors. The here and now, the content of the session versus the process, the real relationship between the people (as opposed to a learner to a higher being). So important for these books to persist, to continue to be read.
This book makes the psychology of death anxiety accessible to everyone. The author鈥檚 lifetime of psychology research & practice are enhanced by his numerous case study examples. His gentle compassion in discussing death and the fear of death is very welcome and attractive. It would be very helpful for psychotherapists, hospice workers, nurses, and caregivers as well as anyone plagued by death anxiety (so, basically, everyone).
3.5 * O carte buna, dar doar atat. Autorul nu vine cu prea multe informatii noi fata de celelalte carti ale lui, iar repetivitatea anumitor idei si detalii ma oboseste. Ma asteptam sa fie o lectura coplesitoare, care sa ma sensibilizeze pana in strafundurile sufletului. A fost doar o lectura bine scrisa, dar care nu m-a impresionat pe cat mi-as fi dorit. Cu toate acestea, o recomand, la fel ca si pe celelalte lecturi ale psihoterapeutului.
3.5 A few months ago, after having several sleepless nights and panic attacks I found out that I have death anxiety. Which isn't really surprising when you counter the fact that we are living in 2020! I spent countless hours on YouTube, blog posts and Reddit to find a "cure" for my anxiety but came to no conclusion whatsoever.
When I told the matter to my therapist, she recommended this book to me. The seemingly perfect book for someone who has death anxiety, a book that's about a therapist dealing with patients with the same condition.
I read this book in hope to find a solution for my fear of death, to finally have a 7-hour sleep session, to not experience that sensation of another panic attack coming and I guess I was asking too much from it!
The book didn't particularly give a solution, and even if it did, they were too "obvious" and "cliche" (You can't experience death because you're already dead, death gives a meaning to every second for your life and so on...).
But given the fact that I got to read about people with the same condition as me, it served as a source of reassurance. And the fact that I completely understood where they're coming from made it equally hard and comforting to read.
Overall not anything unique, but a great starting point for overcoming my fear I guess:))
(2018) Poate cartea merita un 3 1/2*, dar abund膬 卯n typos de toate felurile 葯i culorile, ceea ce mi-a diminuat major (!) pl膬cerea lecturii. Din cauza acestei c膬r葲i inaugurez categoria 鈥漷ypos鈥�. Care nu e a bun膬! Sau datorit膬?!
V膬d c膬 m膬 pl卯ngeam la cartea precedent膬 c膬 erau peste 20 typos la aproximativ 400 pagini. Aici au fost peste 45 (f膬r膬 topic膬, punctua葲ie, fraze l膬sate la voia 卯nt卯mpl膬rii, care nu aveau cap 葯i coad膬) la 200 葯i ceva de pagini.
Ah, da, caut de lucru. Contacta葲i-m膬... Nici a葯a nu se poate!
(2021) Nu 葲ineam s膬 卯i fac pe plac domnului care a comentat acum ceva timp 葯i mm nu prea a fost de acord cu notarea mea *stelar膬*, c膬 ce treab膬 are con葲inutul cu gre葯elile de tipar. Da, da. Acum nu are nici o treab膬, c膬 am recitit cartea 葯i am sim葲it eu a葯a c膬 merg 4*. Nu garantez c膬 r膬m卯n la 4 c卯nd mai ajung la ea (deloc exclus, la cum citesc eu).
p. 12 鈥滱nxietatea 卯n fa葲a mor葲ii este mama tuturor religiilor, care, 卯ntr-un fel sau altul, 卯ncearc膬 s膬 tempereze angoasa finitudinii noastre.鈥�
Irvin Yalom kitaplar谋nda bir standard谋 yakalam谋艧 bir yazar, bu kitab谋 da olduk莽a iyiydi. Bu kitap her 艧eyden 莽ok durup hepimiz i莽in ka莽谋n谋lmaz olan 枚l眉m眉 d眉艧眉nmeyi sa臒lad谋臒谋 i莽in okunmaya de臒er. Yalom'un bu kitapta aktard谋klar谋ndan kendi terapistlik deneyimleri ayr谋 g眉zel, d眉艧眉n眉r ve yazarlar谋n 枚l眉mle ilgili s枚ylediklerinden se莽tikleri ayr谋 g眉zeldi. 脰l眉mle y眉z y眉ze kalma sayesinde ya艧anan uyanma deneyimleri en zevkle okudu臒um k谋s谋md谋 ve bana da 艧u soruyu sordurdu: "Hayat谋n nas谋l ya艧anaca臒谋n谋n fark谋na varmak i莽in mutlaka b枚yle bir deneyim ya艧amak m谋 gerekiyor?"
Bad. Like not good bad. He spent the whole time sucking Freud's dick and talking about how big his was (metaphorically of course). The majority of the book was his miraculous case studies shown for self aggrandizement and when it wasn't that it was just straight up bragging. Yah there is a bit of actually useful existential content but the book is unpleasant to read.