Becoming Myself Quotes

“Creating yourself is a source of great pride, but it also leads to a feeling of having no foundations. I’ve known many gifted children of immigrants who have a sense of being lilies growing in a swamp—beautiful flowers but no deep roots.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“Freedom is the ultimate concern most central to many existential thinkers. In my understanding, it refers to the idea that, since we all live in a universe without inherent design, we must be the authors of our own lives, choices, and actions. Such freedom generates so much anxiety that many of us embrace gods or dictators to remove the burden. If we are, in Sartre’s terms, “the uncontested author” of everything that we have experienced, then our most cherished ideas, our most noble truths, the very bedrock of our convictions, are all undermined by the awareness that everything in the universe is contingent.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“My reading had now shifted strongly to existential thinkers in fiction as well as philosophy: such authors as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Beckett, Kundera, Hesse, Mutis, and Hamsun were not dealing primarily with matters of social class, courtship, sexual pursuit, mystery, or revenge: their subjects were far deeper, touching on the parameters of existence. They struggled to find meaning in a meaningless world, openly confronting inevitable death and unbridgeable isolation. I related to these mortal quandaries. I felt they were telling my story: and not only my story, but also the story of every patient who had ever consulted me. More and more I grasped that many of the issues my patients struggled with — aging, loss, death, major life choices such as what profession to pursue or whom to marry — were often more cogently addressed by novelists and philosophers than by members of my own field.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“I am very often asked why, at the age of eighty-five, I continue to practice. Tip number eighty-five (sheer coincidence that I am now eighty-five years old) begins with a simple declaration: my work with patients enriches my life in that it provides meaning in life. Rarely do I hear therapists complain of a lack of meaning. We live lives of service in which we fix our gaze on the needs of others. We take pleasure not only in helping our patients change, but also in hoping their changes will ripple beyond them toward others. We are also privileged by our role as cradlers of secrets. Every day patients grace us with their secrets, often never before shared. The secrets provide a backstage view of the human condition without social frills, role-playing, bravado, or stage posturing. Being entrusted with such secrets is a privilege given to very few. Sometimes the secrets scorch me and I go home and hold my wife and count my blessings. Moreover, our work provides the opportunity to transcend ourselves and to envision the true and tragic knowledge of the human condition. But we are offered even more. We become explorers immersed in the grandest of pursuits—the development and maintenance of the human mind. Hand in hand with patients, we savor the pleasure of discovery—the “aha” experience when disparate ideational fragments suddenly slide smoothly together into a coherent whole. Sometimes I feel like a guide escorting others through the rooms of their own house. What a treat it is to watch them open doors to rooms never before entered, discover unopened wings of their house containing beautiful and creative pieces of identity. Recently I attended a Christmas service at the Stanford Chapel to hear a sermon by Rev. Jane Shaw that underscored the vital importance of love and compassion. I was moved by her call to put such sentiments into practice whenever we can. Acts of caring and generosity can enrich any environment in which we find ourselves. Her words motivated me to reconsider the role of love in my own profession. I became aware that I have never, not once, used the word love or compassion in my discussions of the practice of psychotherapy. It is a huge omission, which I wish now to correct, for I know that I regularly experience love and compassion in my work as a therapist and do all I can to help patients liberate their love and generosity toward others. If I do not experience these feelings for a particular patient, then it is unlikely I will be of much help. Hence I try to remain alert to my loving feelings or absence of such feelings for my patients.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“Freedom is the ultimate concern most central to many existential thinkers. In my understanding, it refers to the idea that, since we all live in a universe without inherent design, we must be the authors of our own lives, choices, and actions. Such freedom generates so much anxiety that many of us embrace gods or dictators to remove the burden.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“She was a rigid training analyst in a rigid institute that valued interpretation as the singular effective action of the analyst. Of her thoughtful, dense, and carefully worded interpretations, I remember not a one. But her reaching out to me at that time, in that warm manner—that I cherish even now, almost sixty years later.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“And I was scared, too, scared by the sight of a great statue felled and lying in ruins.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“當時，我決心保持距離，保護自己/是因為我缺乏自重——我全盤接受了壓迫者的世界觀/逐漸漂離自己原來熱愛的醫學科學，開始在人文科學上安身立命。這是一段很愜意的時期，但也是一個自我懷疑的時期：常常覺得自己有如一個局外人，在精神醫學上和新的發展脫節，同時，在哲學與文學上又只是一個半吊子。漸漸地，我開始挑選和自己的領域最相關的思想家/對許多存在哲學家來說，自由乃是最核心的終極關懷。依我的理解，自由之為物，無非是說，由於我們並非生活在一個預先設計好的宇宙，因此，每一個人都應該是自己的創作者，創作自己的生活、選擇與行動。這樣的自由會產生極大的焦慮，因此許多人寧願擁抱神明或獨裁者/好思想家的好書，讀來是一種享受/其中有病人的努力與力量，也有他們對我的信任，但他們的成功大體上還是要歸功於他們灌注於我的力量”
― Irvin D. Yalom, 成為我自己：歐文‧亞隆回憶錄

“Recently an extraordinary phrase in A Tale of Two Cities caught my eye: "For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in a circle nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind of smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep..."
That passage moves me tremendously: as I indeed draw closer to the end, I, too, find myself circling more and more to the beginning. My clients' memories more often trigger my own, my work on their future calls upon and disturbs my past, and I find myself reconsidering my own story. My memory of early childhood has always been fragmented, probably, I've always believed, because of my early unhappiness and the squalor in which we lived. Now, as I move into my eighties, more and more images from early life intrude upon my thoughts. The drunks sleeping in our vestibule covered with vomit. My loneliness and isolation. The roaches and the rats.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“What a treat it is to watch them open doors to rooms never before entered, discover unopened wings of their house containing beautiful and creative pieces of identity.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“Later I attended one of Dr. Day’s clinical conferences and was greatly impressed by his acumen and articulateness. But that made it even more baffling. Why wouldn’t he help the floundering group? Little did I know that I would be wrestling with this question for many years of my professional life.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“My turn to present came after I had seen my patient for approximately eight sessions, and I quavered as I began. I had decided not to follow the example of other presenters, who used the formal traditional structure of presenting the patient’s chief complaint, past history, family history, education, and formal psychiatric examination. Instead,”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“She had, very early, fallen in love with the French language, literature, and culture, whereas I preferred the sciences. I managed to accomplish the rather extraordinary feat of mispronouncing every French word I ever saw or heard, while she, for her part, could see only her own eyelashes when she gazed through my microscope.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“I always encourage student therapists to enter personal therapy. “Your own ‘self’ is your major instrument. Learn all you can about it. Don’t let your blind spots get in the way of understanding your patients or empathizing with them.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“Memory and emotions have a curvilinear relationship: too much or too little emotion often results in paucity of memory.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“Every Day Gets a Little Closer. In”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“The patient’s self-esteem is raised by your interest and your willingness to be taught by him, and you are edified and will eventually learn all you need to know about his illness.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“From the outside I was doing splendidly: I had married the woman I loved, I had gained admission into medical school and was performing well in every way, but deep inside, I was never at ease, never confident, and never grasping the source of my anxiety. I had some unclear sense that I had been scarred deeply by my early childhood and felt that I didn’t belong, that I was not as worthy or deserving as others. How I would love to repeat that trip now with the serenity of my current self!”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“When I think about it now, I wonder whether she and my father might have somehow been intimidated by me, whether they felt they could no longer relate to me, and had already lost me to a culture they didn’t understand.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“Looking back now, I feel tenderness for that lonely, frightened, determined young boy, and awe that he somehow made his way through his self-education, albeit haphazardly, without encouragement, models, or guidance.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“My mysterious, tormenting, and unfulfilled sexual throbbings as a teenager. Out of place. Always out of place—the only white kid in a black neighborhood, the only Jew in a Christian world.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in a circle nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind of smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep …”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir

“Zaratustra de Nietzsche me hablan: «¿Eso era la vida? ¡Bien, entonces hagámoslo otra vez!».”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra

“Faulkner lo expresa mejor: «El propósito de todo artista es detener el movimiento y mantenerlo fijo para que, en cierto punto, un extraño lo lea y vuelva otra vez a la vida».”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra

“cuanto mayor el sentimiento de vida sin vivir, tanto más grande el terror a la muerte.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra

“Para aliviar ese miedo, Epicuro desarrolló una serie de potentes argumentos seculares para los estudiantes de su escuela de Atenas y estipuló que debían aprenderlos tal como podrían memorizar un catecismo. Uno de estos argumentos era el renombrado «argumento de simetría», que plantea que nuestro estado de no ser después de la muerte es idéntico a nuestro estado anterior a nuestro nacimiento”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra

“«Un hombre se encuentra para su gran asombro, existiendo repentinamente después de miles y miles de años de inexistencia; vive un poquito y después, otra vez, viene un periodo igualmente largo durante el cual no debe existir».”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra

“El hombre nunca es feliz, pero pasa toda su vida luchando por algo que cree que le dará felicidad; rara vez alcanza su meta y, cuando lo hace, es solo para desilusionarse. Al final es mayormente un náufrago y llega al puerto sin mástil ni aparejos. Entonces da igual si ha sido feliz o miserable, ya que toda su vida no fue más que un momento presente que desaparece constantemente, y ahora también eso se terminó.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra

“El pensamiento psicoanalítico contemporáneo también ha llegado gradualmente a la conclusión de que con la interpretación no basta.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra

“«Los recuerdos del pasado y los anhelos futuros solo producen inquietud».”
― Irvin D. Yalom, Memorias de un psiquiatra