![]() ![]() He writes from the perspective of what he calls “existential psychotherapy,” which adds another implement to counseling’s toolbox. Yalom, a practicing psychiatrist, is the author of acclaimed nonfiction (Love’s Executioner) and fiction (When Nietzsche Wept) as well as of psychology textbooks. Although both got scorched, they survived to recount their quests in volumes whose contrasting approaches illuminate each other. Yalom and David Shields have stared deliberately at death. Two new books prove the epigrammatical Frenchman wrong Irvin D. “You cannot stare straight into the face of the sun, or death,” proclaimed La Rochefoucauld in the 17th century. Washington Post Sunday - February 24, 2008 #STARING AT THE SUN FULL#Please see the full text of this review at. Steve Heilig is co-editor of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. ![]() His relatively brief book, coupled with our aging population and Yalom’s renown as a compassionate, brilliant author, might provide an instructive test of how many readers are willing to brave this particular examination of that ever-nearing personal “sun.” ![]() In fact, that stare will blind you quickly, so most of us avert our eyes. “It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can only stand so much of it,” Yalom admits. ![]() The message is thus to seize the day, whatever that might entail Yalom asks patients and readers to ask themselves, “How can I live now without building new regrets?” Denial of fear never really works, and results in “disguised manifestations” such as “excessive religiosity, an all-consuming accumulation of wealth, and blind grasping for power and honors, all of which offer a counterfeit version of immortality.”ĭenial of death can be dangerous, but so is dwelling on it. “The more unlived the life, the greater one’s death anxiety,” Yalom posits. These deceptively obvious goals are, obviously, not easily attained: What thinking and feeling person truly lives a life with no regrets? But they are inarguably worthwhile ones. His key prescriptions are true connections with others, a feeling one has lived well and “rippling” - having positive impacts and memories live on in others after you die. So what to do about the dread of death? Yalom offers no esoteric magic. Thus, renowned Stanford psychiatrist Irvin Yalom’s “Staring at the Sun” arrives to address an important niche in an inherently uncomfortable arena. Yet, strangely enough, few have tackled what is probably the most universal aspect of dying other than death itself: fear of dying. Now there are shelves of “death and dying” books. Then Jack Kevorkian hit the front pages, a how-to guide to suicide hit the best-seller lists and, perhaps most important, the Baby Boomers began to hit late middle age. Until only a decade or so ago, there were few books about death other than pioneering classics such as those by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. of Medicine, Washington, DC Steve Heilig for the San Francisco Chronicle - Sunday, February 24, 2008, For adults and mature teens and likely to be a classic in the area of serious self-help and psychology an essential library purchase.Į. At 75, Yalom proves to be at the prime of life as a therapist, a writer, and a quotidian soul. The chapter titles “The Power of Ideas,” “The Awakening Experience,” “Overcoming Death Terror Through Connection,” and “Advice for Therapists” indicate his approach: viewing death’s shadow can save us from despair without the consolation of religion. Yalom uses examples from therapy sessions, dreams, his own encounters with death, and his exchanges and experiences with his mentors and teachers to engage the reader in a compelling conversation among equals. As the only creatures with foreknowledge of death-what Yalom calls “the mother of all religions” - we humans must find or create meaning within the limits of our existence. of Medicine) is noted for his stories (Love’s Executioner),novels (When Nietzsche Wept), and writing on group and existential psychotherapy. Psychiatrist Yalom (emeritus, Stanford Univ. < Back Reviews for Staring at the Sun Library Journal - December 15, 2007 ![]()
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