|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Great book Aug 31, 2009
This author makes you feel you are sitting across from him. The book is excellent.
The best Yalom yet! Aug 06, 2009
I've read most of the books he's written, and this is the best. I especially appreciate how he addressed lay and professional audiences, clinical and personal insights.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Not So Original Theme Well Presented Jul 20, 2009
The theme of Yalom's book - that the contemplation of death allows us to live more fully - is not original or new. As a Buddhist practitioner, not a day goes by that I do not think about death. That said, Yalom's ideas are well presented and the theme is worth repetition. Like one of the other reviewers, I enjoyed his discussion of the ideas of various philosophers more than I enjoyed his case studies. Who knew that Epicurious was not all about food?!
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
An Anthropology of the Mind Mar 20, 2009
In his introduction, to Existential Psychotherapy, Yalom states "Yet I believe deeply that, when no one is looking, the therapist throws in the real thing'." Staring at the Sun ia a series of examples of his own "real things" trown into various therapy sessions. This is just one of many books (e.g. Momma and the Meaning of Life: Lying on the Couch) where Yalom explicates the different approaches to the death anxiety
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Opening fully to life through awareness of death Jan 09, 2009
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death Irvin Yalom, M.D.
2008 Jossey-Bass; 256 pages $24.95
In wondering how to write this review, I took a cue from Yalom's new book. Writing letters of gratitude to those we deeply admire helps to bring life into the open and to express our true feelings that are often left unspoken, or put in eulogies or memorials after death. So this is my expression of gratitude to Yalom for his writing.
Being a psychotherapist and one who works with end of life, he has given me so much that the depth of my gratitude is difficult to convey - all he has written has changed me. I am grateful to Yalom as a model of who I am becoming as a psychotherapist - his courage to stand out in the open and speak his heart allows me to trust what I see and to speak my truth. Where other supervision has failed, his writing has guided me through the most difficult cases I have experienced. He has the courage to face that from which others run. Courage comes from the Latin cor meaning heart - and Yalom has heart.
Facing death - whether it's our own or a loved one - opens us to life. Ten years ago, when my mother was dying I remember sobbing as my father and I left the hospital. My father put his arm around me saying, "Honey, we all have to die someday". His gesture was not only a comfort, but an awakening. I have been working as an end of life counselor now for the past 6 years, and teach a course "Embracing the Inevitable."
We are a culture that does not talk about death. By the time we begin thinking about death, it's on top of us. Staring at the Sun looks at death head-on with Yalom weaving together his story-telling flair of real life, along with his knowledge of philosophy, existential psychotherapy, literature, poetry, and film. For therapists, he reminds us to pay attention to symptoms that have their roots in existential issues of mortality, and to remain in the here and now with our patients. For everyone, he takes death out of the closet and puts it into the world where it belongs.
Yalom sees both broad and deep as he walks the line on the cutting edge. His synergy of ideas, humor, and connection are a framework to practice everyday life, and to live more fully. For those brave enough to face the sun, Staring at the Sun is a trove of insights from years of practice.
He deals with real problems - those of existence. Both in facing death and as a therapist who works in a real way - he has encouraged me to be more real with my clients and in my own life - to be in the moment and to stay focused on the importance of connection.
I admire his brilliance, his wisdom, his breadth not laced with hope of an afterlife, but a pragmatic map along a road that we all travel. No training program prepares therapists for this kind of work. Often therapists avoid the topic of death, even though in this country someone dies every 13 seconds. Yalom encourages me to walk the tight wire between being with clients in a way we don't learn in school or internships and at the same time remain ethical - real ethics - not ethics based on a rigid one size fits all formula set up by licensing agencies. Keeping death as a companion allows us to see the therapeutic process more clearly.
He reminds me to lose the role - it doesn't work when someone is dying and it doesn't work when someone is living. "No uniforms, no paradigms, no diploma, prestige, or pretense, no hiding behind the role." he says. These are the lessons we can learn from the dying - they are our teachers. They show us how to be present in the moment, they are the clearest mirrors - allowing us to live more fully; they show us the future and its possibilities.
Our culture creates a silence and isolation around the dying, which grow more distant as we hide our fears from each other. We attempt to shut out pain by not hearing, speaking, or listening. In working with end of life, I know that dying doesn't have to be the lonely experience it's come to be in modern times.
We are isolated when we don't show our fear of death, or our grief. New doors open when we can speak from the heart - reveal ourselves, our own fears, and to hold the dying one in any way that gives comfort - it is the opening of deep connection that overcomes death anxiety. In his Yalomesck way, he and the dying continue to remind me of the importance of human connection - it is the relationship that heals.
Confrontation with death arouses anxiety that has the potential to improve our lives. The power of presence looks straight into the heart of panic. As a child, my father had me confront my fears - with all lights on and holding the edge of his shirt, we looked under the bed and in the closet for the creature - I was certain existed - that had long spindly arms that would grab my legs...pull me under...and we found none night after night, and with patience he had me look directly into the dark corners of my fear.
Yalom reminds us that we need to ask certain questions in the face of fear, and to look at the relationship between fear of death and a sense of an unlived life. He asks - how well do we live? What will we regret 6 months from now, a year? What can we do now in our lives? These are lessons for the living. Feeling regret is a tool that can help us to take action to prevent further accumulation. How can we live now without building new regrets? Discomfort in the present is the best guide for direction.
I love Yalom's style of writing and theories, what he has to offer. I savor every word. The philosophic view may not be useful to everyone, as he illustrates with a case example. But looking death square in the face is necessary if we want the fullest life possible. Walking side by side with death, we open to the mysteries of life. By facing death heart on, we gain greater clarity.
I don't claim to know what happens after death or not - I am also a pragmatist - and perhaps go a step further than Yalom in where I find comfort. Being a lover of nature, what gives me comfort is watching the ever changing process as it unfolds through the seasons and to see myself in this place - as nature ever taking different appearances from birth to death, and am certain that when I die I will become, in some form, part of the earth.... so
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
~Walt Whitman - song of myself
So as with my father, Yalom's work has washed over me - "I have taken some part of you into me. It has changed and enriched me and I shall pass it on to others". And I continue to bob and float on the ripples of Yalom's work, and am grateful to him for his gift.
|
| |
|
![Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V%2Beipy8-L._SL75_.jpg "Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]")
![Across the Universe [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51T24FuHPEL._SL75_.jpg "Across the Universe [Blu-ray]")
![Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F27VzUl%2BL._SL75_.jpg "Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]")
![Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RQUEopdlL._SL75_.jpg "Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]")
