The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy Quotes

“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, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“People need people - for initial and continued survival, for socialization, for the pursuit of satisfaction. No one - not the dying, not the outcast, not the mighty - transcends the need for human contact.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“I agree with Viktor Frankl that 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, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“[T]he harvest of psychotherapy is not cure - surely, in our field, that is an illusion - but instead change or growth.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“There is no human deed or thought that lies fully outside the experience of other people.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“Members of a cohesive group feel warmth and comfort in the group and a sense of belongingness; they value the group and feel in turn that they are valued, accepted, and supported by other members.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“Client-therapist disagreement about the goals and tasks of therapy may impair the therapeutic alliance.† This issue is not restricted to group therapy. Client-therapist discrepancies on therapeutic factors also occur in individual psychotherapy. A large study of psychoanalytically oriented therapy found that clients attributed their successful therapy to relationship factors, whereas their therapists gave precedence to technical skills and techniques.84 In general, analytic therapists value the coming to consciousness of unconscious factors and the subsequent linkage between childhood experiences and present symptoms far more than do their clients, who deny the importance or even the existence of these elements in therapy; instead they emphasize the personal elements of the relationship and the encounter with a new, accepting type of authority figure.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“[E]xplanation and clarification function as effective therapeutic agents in their own right. Human beings have always abhorred uncertainty and through the ages have sought to order the universe by providing explanations, primarily religious or scientific. The explanation of a phenomenon is the first step toward its control. If a volcanic eruption is caused by a displeased god, then at least there is hope of pleasing the god.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“The most common secret is a deep conviction of basic inadequacy - a feeling that one is basically incompetent, that one bluffs one's way through life. Next in frequency is a deep sense of interpersonal alienation - that, despite appearances, one really does not, or cannot care for or love another person. The third most frequent category is some variety of sexual secret.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“Any limiting categorization is not only erroneous but offensive, and stands in opposition to the basic human foundations of the therapeutic relationship. In my opinion, the less we think (during the process of psychotherapy) in terms of diagnostic labels, the better. (Albert Camus once described hell as a place where one’s identity was eternally fixed and displayed on personal signs: Adulterous Humanist, Christian Landowner, Jittery Philosopher, Charming Janus, and so on.8 To Camus, hell is where one has no way of explaining oneself, where one is fixed, classified—once and for all time.)”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“Psychiatric cure is the "expanding of the self to such final effect that the patient as known to himself is much the same person as the patient behaving to others.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“[P]sychiatric treatments should be directed toward the correction of interpersonal distortions, thus enabling the individual to lead a more abundant life, to participate collaboratively with others, to obtain interpersonal satisfactions in the context of realistic, mutually satisfying interpersonal relationships[.]”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“In general, however, there is agreement that groups differ from one another in the amount of “groupness” present. Those with a greater sense of solidarity, or “we-ness,” value the group more highly and will defend it against internal and external threats. Such groups have a higher rate of attendance, participation, and mutual support and will defend the group standards much more than groups with less esprit de corps.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“If the group leaders are seen as parental figures, then they will draw reactions associated with parental/authority figures:”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“[D]o not mistake the appearance of efficiency for true effectiveness.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

“Which”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy