Home > Work > The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients
1 " Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us. "
― Irvin D. Yalom , The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients
2 " love obsession often serves as a distraction, keeping the individual’s gaze from more painful thoughts. "
3 " Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other. We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life. "
4 " As long as he denies his own agency, real change is unlikely because his attention will be directed toward changing his environment rather than himself. "
5 " I often feel caught in a dilemma: on the one hand I wish to be more natural with you and yet, on the other hand, because I feel that you’re easily wounded and that you give my comments inordinate power, I feel I must consider my wording very, very carefully. "
6 " The establishment of an authentic relationship with patients, by its very nature, demands that we forego the power of the triumvirate of magic, mystery, and authority. "
7 " If you make a mistake, admit it. Any attempt at cover-up will ultimately backfire. At some level the patient will sense you are acting in bad faith, and therapy will suffer. Furthermore, an open admission of error is good model-setting for patients and another sign that they matter to you. "
8 " Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it. "
9 " Sometimes I simply remind patients that sooner or later they will have to relinquish the goal of having a better past. "
10 " Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said that if he had eight hours to cut down a tree, he’d spend several of these hours sharpening his ax. "
11 " The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety. "
12 " if we hope for more significant therapeutic change, we must encourage our patients to assume responsibility—that is, to apprehend how they themselves contribute to their distress. "
13 " Psychotherapy is a demanding vocation, and the successful therapist must be able to tolerate the isolation, anxiety, and frustration that are inevitable in the work. "
14 " We humans appear to be meaning-seeking creatures who have had the misfortune of being thrown into a world devoid of intrinsic meaning. One of our major tasks is to invent a meaning sturdy enough to support a life and to perform the tricky maneuver of denying our personal authorship of this meaning. Thus we conclude instead that it was "out there" waiting for us. Our ongoing search for substantial meaning systems often throws us into crises of meaning. "
15 " Too often, we therapists neglect our personal relationships. Our work becomes our life. "
16 " Empathy: Looking Out the Patient’s Window "
17 " We cannot avoid this responsibility, this freedom. "
18 " The therapist's worldview is in itself isolating. Seasoned therapists view relationships differently, they sometimes lose patience with social ritual and bureaucracy, they cannot abide the fleeting shallow encounters and small talk of many social gatherings. "
19 " Winnicott also cites the hostile lullabies mothers sing to babies, who fortunately do not understand the words. For example: Rockabye, Baby, on the treetop, When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And down will come baby, cradle and all. "
20 " Beginning therapists must learn that there are times to sit in silence, sometimes in silent communion, sometimes simply while waiting for patients' thoughts to appear in a form that they may be expressed. "
