Irvin Yalom Love's Executioner Quotes

Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person dies, the whole cluster dies, too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?

Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a "giving to," not a 'falling for"; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.

Four givens are particularly relevant for psycho-therapy: the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and, finally, the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life.

One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety.

I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.

I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy—I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love’s executioner.

Some people are wish-blocked, knowing neither what they feel nor what they want. Without opinions, without impulses, without inclinations, they become parasites on the desires of others.

The human being either asserts autonomy by heroic self-assertion or seeks safety through fusing with a superior force: that is, one either emerges or merges, separates or embeds. One becomes one’s own parent or remains the eternal child.

People who feel empty never heal by merging with another incomplete person. On the contrary, two broken-winged birds coupled into one make for clumsy flight. No amount of patience will help it fly; and, ultimately, each must be pried from the other, and wounds separately splinted. The

The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.

come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one’s death anxiety.

As a general rule, the less one’s sense of life fulfillment, the greater one’s death anxiety.

Four major existential concerns—death, meaning in life, isolation, and freedom—play a crucial role in the inner life of every human being and

Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation. A

It’s the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals—my professional rosary.

When you meet someone, you know all about him. On subsequent meetings, you blind yourself to your own wisdom

Παρόλο που η ψευδαίσθηση συχνά αναπτερώνει και ανακουφίζει, στο τέλος πάντα αδυνατίζει και περιορίζει την ψυχή.

Mind thinks in images but, to communicate with another, must transform image into thought and then thought into language. That march, from image to thought to language, is treacherous. Casualties occur: the rich, fleecy texture of image, its extraordinary plasticity and flexibility, its private nostalgic emotional hues - all are lost when image is crammed into language.

The more the therapist is able to tolerate the anxiety of not knowing, the less need there is for the therapist to embrace orthodoxy.

Indeed, the capacity to tolerate uncertainty is a prerequisite for the profession. Though the public may believe that therapists guide patients systematically and sure-handedly through predictable stages of therapy to a foreknown goal, such is rarely the case: instead, as these stories bear witness, therapists frequently wobble, improvise, and grope for direction. The powerful temptation to achieve certainty through embracing an ideological school and a tight therapeutic system is treacherous: such belief may block the uncertain and spontaneous encounter necessary for effective therapy. This encounter, the very heart of psychotherapy, is a caring, deeply human meeting between two people, one (generally, but not always, the patient) more troubled than the other. Therapists have a dual role: they must both observe and participate in the lives of their patients. As observer, one must be sufficiently objective to provide necessary rudimentary guidance to the patient. As participant, one enters into the life of the patient and is affected and sometimes changed by the encounter.

In general, e mai bine sa nu ataci un mecanism de aparare, decat daca acesta creeaza mai multe probleme decat solutii si daca ai ceva mai bun de pus in loc.

Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes over flow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide).

If one is to learn to live with the dead, one must first learn to live with the living!

A nightmare is a failed dream, a dream that, by not “handling” anxiety, has failed in its role as the guardian of sleep.

though the fact, the physicality, of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.

How disquieting to realise that reality is an illusion, at best a democratisation of perception based on participant consensus.

Translation error is compounded by bias error. We distort others by forcing into them our preferred ideas and gestalts, a process Proust beautifully describes: We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds, these ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognize and to which we listen.

That was the first important discovery I made about Betty: she was desperately isolated, and she survived this isolation only by virtue of the sustaining myth that her intimate life was being lived elsewhere. Her friends, her circle of acquaintances, were not here, but elsewhere, in New York, in Texas, in the past. In fact, everything of importance was elsewhere. It was at this time that I first began to suspect that for Betty there was no “here” there.

Therapists have a dual role: they must both observe and participate in the lives of their patients. As observer, one must be sufficiently objective to provide necessary rudimentary guidance to the patient. As participant, one enters into the life of the patient and is affected and sometimes changed by the encounter. In

Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a “falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

That just seems to be the way we’re built.

From both my personal and my professional experience, I had come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully.

I have noted two particularly powerful and common methods of allaying fears about death, two beliefs, or delusions, that afford a sense of safety. One is the belief in personal specialness; the other, the belief in an ultimate rescuer.

I had come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one’s death anxiety. My

The second, “alternatives exclude,” is an important key to understanding why decision is difficult. Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide).

The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely.

The last gift a parent can give to children is to teach them, through example, how to face death with equanimity.

Ο Θερβάντες ρωτούσε: «Τι προτιμάς: σοφή τρέλα ή ανόητη λογική;»

One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety. Fusion eradicates anxiety in a radical fashion—by eliminating self-awareness. The person who has fallen in love, and entered a blissful state of merger, is not self-reflective because the questioning lonely I (and the attendant anxiety of isolation) dissolve into the we. Thus one sheds anxiety but loses oneself. This is precisely why therapists do not like to treat a patient who has fallen in love. Therapy and a state of love-merger are incompatible because therapeutic work requires a questioning self-awareness and an anxiety that will ultimately serve as guide to internal conflicts. Furthermore,

Love is not just a passion of spark between two people, there is an infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a "giving to", not a "falling for", a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.

Όποτε ο ασθενής αρχίζει ν' αναπτύσσει συμπτώματα στη σχέση του με τον θεραπευτή, τότε έχει πραγματικά αρχίσει η θεραπεία, και η εξερεύνηση αυτών των συμπτωμάτων θ' ανοίξει το δρόμο για τα κεντρικά του ζητήματα.

One’s efforts to escape isolation can sabotage one’s relationships with other people. Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation.

Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a “falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person. Though

People who feel empty never heal by merging with another incomplete person.

Remember, you can’t do all the work. Be content to help a patient realize what must be done and then trust his or her own desire for growth and change.

My task as a therapist (not unlike that of a parent) is to make myself obsolete—to help a patient become his or her own mother and father.

The sentiment that one "should have done something more" reflects, it seems to me, an underlying wish to control the uncontrollable. After all, if one is guilty about not having done something that one should have done, then it follows that there is something that could have been done - a comforting thought that decoys us from our pathetic helplessness in the face of death.

Beware the powerful exclusive attachment to another; it is not, as people sometimes think, evidence of the purity of the love. Such encapsulated, exclusive love—feeding on itself, neither giving to nor caring about others—is destined to cave in on itself. Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a “falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person. Though

The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely. Meaning ensues from meaningful activity: the more we deliberately pursue it, the less likely are we to find it; the rational questions one can pose about meaning will always outlast the answers. In therapy, as in life, meaningfulness is a by-product of engagement and commitment, and that is where therapists must direct their efforts—not that engagement provides the rational answer to questions of meaning, but it causes these questions not to matter.

Nietzsche claimed that a philosopher’s system of thought always arises from his autobiography, and I believe that to be true for all therapists—in fact, for anyone who thinks about thought. At a conference approximately

-... Geçici dostlukları kim ister? - Bu yaklaşımın sakat tarafı, sonunda kendini insansız bir yaşamın içinde bulman. Belki de içindeki boşluk duygusu kısmen bundan kaynaklanıyor. Şöyle ya da böyle her ilişki bitmek zorunda. Ömür boyu garanti diye bir şey yok. Güneşin batışını görmekten üzüntü duyduğun için doğuşunu izlemekten zevk almayı reddetmek gibi bir şey bu.

At other times Betty expressed anger at my forcing her to think about morbid topics. “Why think about death? We can’t do anything about it!” I tried to help her understand that, though the fact of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us. In other words, our awareness of death can throw a different perspective on life and incite us to rearrange our priorities.

Ubijeđen sam da su, u tim zanosima prvih susreta, Dan i žena pogrešno tumačili ono što u vidjeli jedno u drugom. Svako od njih je vidjeo odraz sopstvenog preklinjanja, ranjen pogled i pogrešno ga protumačio kao želju i ispunjenost. Oboje su bill ptići sa slomljenim krilima, koji su tražili da lete privijeni uz drugu pticu sa slomljenim krilima. Ljudi koje se osjećaju isprazno nikada se ne izliječe stapanjem sa drugom nepotpunom osobom. Naprotiv, dvije ptice sa slomljenim krilima spojene u jednu će letjeti nespretno. Nikakva količina strpljenja im neće pomoći da lete; i, konačno, svaki mora biti poduprt različitim stvarima, a rane se stavljaju u odvojene udlage.

Οχυρωμένος μέσα σε μια καλοδουλεμένη ψευδαίσθηση απεριόριστης δύναμης και προόδου, ο καθένας από μας προσυπογράφει, τουλάχιστον ως την κρίση της μέσης ηλικίας, την πεποίθηση πως η ύπαρξη είναι μια αιώνια ανοδική σπείρα επιτευγμάτων, που εξαρτάται μόνο από τη βούλησή μας.

I have found that four givens are particularly relevant to psychotherapy: the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and, finally, the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life.

Simtindu-ne neajutorati si derutati in fata aleatorului, a evenimentelor fara nici un tipar aparent, cautam sa le ordonam si, prin aceasta, sa avem senzatia ca le controlam. Chiar mai important decat atat, intelesul da nastere valorilor si, mai departe, unui cod de comportament – astfel, raspunsurile la intrebarile despre de ce (de ce traiesc?) furnizeaza un raspuns la intrebarile despre cum (cum sa traiesc?).

Κάθε φορά που σφάλλω στο ζήτημα της αυτοαποκάλυψης, είναι γιατί μοιράζομαι πάρα πολύ λίγα, όχι πάρα πολλά. Όποτε όμως έχω μοιραστεί πολλά δικά μου πράγματα, οι ασθενείς έχουν πάντα ωφεληθεί συνειδητοποιώντας πως έχω κι εγώ να παλέψω με τ' ανθρώπινα προβλήματα, όπως κι εκείνοι.

Freedom as a given seems the very antithesis of death. While we dread death, we generally consider freedom to be unequivocally positive. Has not the history of Western civilization been punctuated with yearnings for freedom, even driven by it? Yet freedom from an existential perspective is bonded to anxiety in asserting that, contrary to everyday experience, we do not enter into, and ultimately leave, a well-structured universe with an eternal grand design. Freedom means that one is responsible for one’s own choices, actions, one’s own life situation. Though the word responsible may be used in a variety of ways, I prefer Sartre’s definition: to be responsible is to “be the author of,” each of us being thus the author of his or her own life design. We are free to be anything but unfree: we are, Sartre would say, condemned to freedom.

Why think about death? We can’t do anything about it!” I tried to help her understand that, though the fact of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us. In other words, our awareness of death can throw a different perspective on life and incite us to rearrange our priorities.

Μια από τις πιο σημαντικές αρχές των ομάδες είναι πως κάθε ομάδα είναι ένας κόσμος σε μικρογραφία - όποιο περιβάλλον δημιουργούμε μέσα στην ομάδα αντανακλά τον τρόπου που έχουμε επιλέξει να ζούμε. Ο καθένας μας δημιουργεί μέσα στην ομάδα το ίδιο είδος κοινωνικού περίγυρου που έχουμε στην πραγματική ζωή μας.

Asa-zisa „psihologie pentru mase” bate intr-una moneda pe „asumarea responsabilitatii”, dar nu sunt decat vorbe goale: este extraordinar de greu, ba chiar terifiant, sa accepti ideea ca tu si numai tu esti acela care iti construiesti viata, felul in care o traiesti. Ca urmare, problema in psihoterapie consta intotdeauna in a sti cum sa treci de la o apreciere in plan intelectual, care se dovedeste ineficace, a unui adevar despre tine insuti la un mod saul altul de a-l simti in plan emotional. Abia din clipa in care terapia mobilizeaza emotii profunde, incepe sa devina o forta redutabila in favoarea schimbarii.

This encounter, the very heart of psychotherapy, is a caring, deeply human meeting between two people, one (generally, but not always, the patient) more troubled than the other. Therapists have a dual role: they must both observe and participate in the lives of their patients. As observer, one must be sufficiently objective to provide necessary rudimentary guidance to the patient. As participant, one enters into the life of the patient and is affected and sometimes changed by the encounter.

While there is no solution to existential isolation, therapists must discourage false solutions. One’s efforts to escape isolation can sabotage one’s relationships with other people. Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation.

O özel olma,büyülü bir gücün etkisinde olma, kuraldışı olma, sonsuza dek korunuyor olma duygusu- ona böylesine yararlı olan tüm bu aldanışlar ikna etme güçlerini ansızın yitirmişlerdi. Artık kendi yanılsamalarının ötesini görebiliyordu ve daha önce yanılsamaların kalkan gibi koruduğu şey şimdi önünde bütün çıplaklığı ve korkunçluğuyla uzanıyordu.

Indeed, the capacity to tolerate uncertainty is a prerequisite for the profession.

One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety

therapy uncovered deep roots of these everyday problems—roots stretching down to the bedrock of existence. “I

more commonly death anxiety surfaces in nightmares. A

Freedom means that one is responsible for one’s own choices, actions, one’s own life situation. Though

My task as a therapist (not unlike that of a parent) is to make myself obsolete - to help a patient become his or her own mother and father

varoluşun ayrılmaz bir parçası olan mutlak yalnızlık ve yalnızlık gerçeğini değilse de korkusunu gideren bir yakınlık.

eğer insan ölülerle yaşamayı öğrenecekse, önce yaşayanlarla yaşamayı öğrenmelidir.

До тех пор, пока человек верит, что его проблемы обусловлены какой-то внешней причиной, терапия бессильна.

Existential isolation, a third given, refers to the unbridgeable gap between self and others, a gap that exists even in the presence of deeply gratifying interpersonal relationships.

I had helped him understand that he had lost sight of his personal boundaries. It is natural, I had told him, that one should respond adversely to an attack on one’s central core—after all, in that situation one’s very survival is at stake. But I had pointed out that Carlos had stretched his personal boundaries to encompass his work and, consequently, he responded to a mild criticism of any aspect of his work as though it were a mortal attack on his central being, a threat to his very survival. I had urged Carlos to differentiate between his core self and other, peripheral attributes or activities. Then he had to “disidentify” with the non-core parts: they might represent what he liked, or did, or valued—but they were not him, not his central being.

I knew this was an important issue, and that we would return to it. Otto Rank described this life stance with a wonderful phrase: “Refusing the loan of life in order to avoid the debt of death.

In choosing to enter fully into each patient’s life, I, the therapist, not only am exposed to the same existential issues as are my patients but must be prepared to examine them with the same rules of inquiry. I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.

Ένα απ' τα αξιώματα της ψυχοθεραπείας είναι ότι τα σημαντικά συναισθήματα που έχει ο ένας για τον άλλον μεταδίδονται πάντα μέσα από κάποιο κανάλι - αν όχι με λεκτικά, τότε με μη λεκτικά σήματα. Από τότε που ξεκίνησα να διδάσκω, έλεγα πάντα στους φοιτητές μου πως, αν κάτι μεγάλο μέσα σε μια σχέση δεν συζητιέται (είτε από τον θεραπευόμενο είτε απ' τον θεραπευτή), τότε τίποτα άλλο σημαντικό δεν πρόκειται να συζητηθεί.

Existential isolation, a third given, refers to the unbridgeable gap between self and others, a gap that exists even in the presence of deeply gratifying interpersonal relationships. One is isolated not only from other beings but, to the extent that one constitutes one’s world, from world as well. Such isolation is to be distinguished from two other types of isolation: interpersonal and intrapersonal isolation. One experiences interpersonal isolation, or loneliness, if one lacks the social skills or personality style that permit intimate social interactions. Intrapersonal isolation occurs when parts of the self are split off, as when one splits off emotion from the memory of an event. The most extreme, and dramatic, form of splitting, the multiple personality, is relatively rare (though growing more widely recognized); when it does occur, the therapist may be faced (...) with the bewildering dilemma of which personality to cherish.

Sometimes death anxiety is dismissed as trivial in its universality. Who, after all, does not know and fear death? Yet it is one thing to know about death in general, to grit one's own teeth and stoke up a shudder or two; it is quite another to apprehend one's own death and to experience it in the bones and sockets of one's being. Such death awareness is a terror that comes rarely, sometimes only once or twice in a lifetime-a terror that Marvin now experienced night after night.

If we relate to people believing that we can categorize them, we will neither identify nor nuture the parts, the vital parts, of the other that transcends category. The enabling relationship always assumes that the other is never fully knowable.

Είχα την αίσθηση πως ένα σημαντικό μάθημα που θα δίδασκε την Μπέττυ η επίγνωση του θανάτου ήταν ότι τη ζωή πρέπει να τη ζεις τώρα. Δεν μπορείς να την αναβάλλεις επ' άπειρον. Εύκολα μπορούσα να της απαριθμήσω τους τρόπους με τους οποίους απέφευγε τη ζωή: την απροθυμία της να κάνει σχέσεις με άλλου (γιατί φοβόταν το χωρισμό), την υπερκατανάλωση φαγητού και την παχυσαρκία της που την απέκλειαν από μεγάλο κομμάτι της ζωής, την αποφυγή του άμεσου παρόντος τρέχοντας να χωθεί το συντομότερο στο παρελθόν ή στο μέλλον.

I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit. But there is timing and judgment. Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer. Beware of stripping a patient who can’t bear the chill of reality. And don’t exhaust yourself by jousting with religious magic: you’re no match for it. The thirst for religion is too strong, its roots too deep, its cultural reinforcement too powerful.

I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit. But there is timing and judgment. Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer. Beware of stripping a patient who can’t bear the chill of reality. And don’t exhaust yourself by jousting with religious magic: you’re no match for it. The thirst for religion is too strong, its roots too deep, its cultural reinforcement too powerful.

From the beginning, of course, I had known that the pure forcefulness of my argument would not penetrate deep enough to effect any change. It almost never does. It’s never worked for me when I’ve been in therapy. Only when one feels an insight in one’s bones does one own it. Only then can one act on it and change. Pop psychologists forever talk about “responsibility assumption,” but it’s all words: it is extraordinarily hard, even terrifying, to own the insight that you and only you construct your own life design. Thus, the problem in therapy is always how to move from an ineffectual intellectual appreciation of a truth about oneself to some emotional experience of it. It is only when therapy enlists deep emotions that it becomes a powerful force for change. And powerlessness was

«Όχι!» είπα στον εαυτό μου, προσπαθώντας ν' αποτινάξω αυτό το συναίσθημα. Προφανώς αυτό είχε συμβεί και στους προηγούμενους, είχαν καταποντιστεί μέσα στη συγκίνηση όλοι οι προηγούμενοι θεραπευτές που δεν μπόρεσαν να τη βοηθήσουν. Κατάλαβα πως, για να δουλέψω με την Πέννυ, θα 'πρεπε να δεθώ στο κατάρτι της λογικής.

Penny’s fear of her own death, while not explicitly emerging in our therapy, manifested itself indirectly. For example, she was greatly concerned about “time running out”—too little time left to get an education, to take a vacation, to leave behind some tangible legacy; and too little time for us to finish our work together.

Budući da je istina da se punoća duše ponekad može utopiti u potpunoj bljutavosti jezika, jer niko od nas nikada ne može zaista izraziti tačne mere svojih potreba, misli ili patnji; a ljudski govor je poput razbijenog lončeta, po kom udaramo grube ritmove da bi medvedi uz njih igrali, dok želimo da stvorimo muziku koja će raznežiti zvezde.

Nestes dez contos sobre psicoterapia há poucas discussões explícitas acerca do significado da vida. A busca de significado, muito semelhante à busca de prazer, deve ser conduzida indiretamente. O significado resulta da atividade significativa: quanto mais o procurarmos deliberadamente, menos provável será seu encontro; as perguntas racionais que alguém pode fazer a respeito do significado sempre excederão as respostas. Na terapia, assim como na vida, a presença de significado é um subproduto do vínculo e do comprometimento, e é nesse sentido que os terapeutas devem dirigir seus esforços - não que o vínculo ofereça uma resposta racional às perguntas sobre significados, mas porque faz com que essas perguntas não tenham importância.

But many people never discover the folly of such a search and continue to believe that, given enough information, they can define and explain a person. Controversy has always existed among psychiatrists and psychologists about the validity of personality diagnosis. Some believe in the merits of the enterprise and devote their careers to ever greater nosological precision. Others, and among them I include myself, marvel that anyone can take diagnosis seriously, that it can ever be considered more than a simple cluster of symptoms and behavioral traits. Nonetheless, we find ourselves under ever-increasing pressure (from hospitals, insurance companies, governmental agencies) to sum up a person with a diagnostic phrase and a numerical category.

Impreuna, aceste doua sisteme de convingeri alcatuiesc o dialectica – doua reactii diametral opuse la situatia in care se afla omul. Fiinta umana fie isi declara autonomia prin autoafirmare eroica, fie cauta securitatea prin contopirea cu o forta superioara – cu alte cuvinte, evolueaza sau fuzioneaza, se separa sau se inglobeaza. Se transforma in propriul parinte sau ramane un vesnic copil.

Decisions are difficult for many reasons, some reaching down into the very socket of being. John Gardner, in his novel Grendel, tells of a wise man who sums up his meditation on life’s mysteries in two simple but terrible postulates: “Things fade: alternatives exclude.” Of the first postulate, death, I have already spoken. The second, “alternatives exclude,” is an important key to understanding why decision is difficult. Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide). Thus, Thelma clung to the infinitesimal chance that she might once again revive her relationship with her lover, renunciation of that possibility signifying diminishment and death.

Όσο κι αν μ' αρέσει να κάνω ομαδική θεραπεία, το μέγεθος αυτό έχει ένα σημαντικό μειονέκτημα για μένα: συχνά δεν επιτρέπει την εξερεύνηση βαθύτερων υπαρξιακών θεμάτων. Πολλές φορές μέσα στην ομάδα παρατηρώ με λαχτάρα κάποιο υπέροχο μονοπάτι που θα μπορούσε να με οδηγήσει βαθύτερα σ' έναν άνθρωπο, αλλά πρέπει να ικανοποιηθώ με το πρακτικό (και πιο χρήσιμο) καθήκον να καθαρίσω τα διαπροσωπικά αγκάθια.

The last gift a parent can give to children is to teach them, through example, how to face death with equanimity—and Carlos gave an extraordinary lesson in grace. His death was not one of the dark, muffled, conspiratorial passings. Until the very end of his life, he and his children were honest with one another about his illness and giggled together at the way he snorted, crossed his eyes, and puckered his lips when he referred to his “lymphoooooooooooomma.

Controversy has always existed among psychiatrists and psychologists about the validity of personality diagnosis. Some believe in the merits of the enterprise and devote their careers to ever greater nosological precision. Others, and among them I include myself, marvel that anyone can take diagnosis seriously, that it can ever be considered more than a simple cluster of symptoms and behavioral traits. Nonetheless, we find ourselves under ever-increasing pressure (from hospitals, insurance companies, governmental agencies) to sum up a person with a diagnostic phrase and a numerical category. Even the most liberal system of psychiatric nomenclature does violence to the being of another. If we relate to people believing we can categorize them, we will neither identify nor nurture the parts, the vital parts, of the other that transcend category. The enabling relationship always assumes that the other is never fully knowable.

Το να χάσεις έναν γονιό ή έναν στενό φίλο ισοδυναμεί συχνά με απώλεια του παρελθόντος: ο άνθρωπος που πέθανε ίσως να ήταν ο μοναδικός άλλος ζωντανός μάρτυρας περασμένων ευτυχισμένων γεγονότων. Αλλά το να χάσεις ένα παιδί σημαίνει πως χάνεις το μέλλον: αυτό που χάνεται είναι ολόκληρο το σχέδιο της ζωής σου - αυτό για το οποίο ζεις, το πώς προβάλλεις τον εαυτό σου στο μέλλον, το πώς ελπίζεις ότι θα υπερβείς το θάνατο (πραγματικά, το παιδί γίνεται η προβολή σου στην αθανασία).

Επί τέσσερα χρόνια είχαν μια υπέροχα μυστική σχέση. (Όχι υπέροχη και μυστική αλλά υπέροχα μυστική, γιατί η μυστικότητα -και σε λίγο θα πω περισσότερα πάνω σ' αυτό- ήταν ο άξονας της προσωπικότητας του Ντέηβ, γύρω απ' τον οποίο περιστρέφονταν όλα τα υπόλοιπα. Η μυστικότητα τον ερέθιζε, τον γοήτευε, και συχνά την καλλιεργούσε με μεγάλο προσωπικό κόστος. Πολλές σχέσεις του, ιδίως οι σχέσεις του με τις δύο πρώην αλλά και με τη νυν σύζυγό του, είχαν διαστρεβλωθεί και διαρραγεί απ' την απροθυμία του να είναι ανοιχτός ή ευθύς για οτιδήποτε.)

Bir dizi çarpıtıcı prizma bir başkasını tanımamızı engeller... Önce imge ve dil arasındaki engel var... ... Bir başkasını hiçbir zaman tamamen tanıyamayışımızın bir nedeni de neleri açığa vuracağımız konusunda seçici oluşumuzdur... ... Bir başkasını tümüyle tanımaya bir üçüncü engel de paylaşan kişide değil, paylaşanın izlediği sırayı tersine çevirip dili imgeye- zihnin okuyabileceği metne- tercüme etmesi gereken öbür kişide, tanıyanda bulunur. Alıcının imgesinin göndericinin özgün zihinsel imgesine uyması çılgınca olanak dışıdır. Çeviri hatası önyargı hatasıyla karışır. Başkalarını kendi yeğlediğimiz fikir ve gestalt'lara uydurmak için zorlayarak çarpıtırız. ... Bir yüzü her görüşümüzde tanıdığımız şey o kişiye ilişkin kendi fikirlerimizdir. Bu kelimeler hüsranla sonuçlanan birçok ilişkinin anlaşılması için bir anahtar verir bize.