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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
An inspiring and educational read. Although non-fictional, this book is easy to read and a very interesting approach to anxiety and death.
The Possibility of the Impossible
The transition from being to non-being is one impossible to conceive. Its one word description, death, tells us nothing about it that is comprehensible. The word points to something which is the equivalent of a God of whom we can know absolutely nothing. Death is, therefore, an intellectual impossibility, a contradiction, a one-word oxymoron. Hence the inversion in my title of Yalom’s quote from Martin Heidegger: “Death is the impossibility of further possibility.”
Heidegger is certainly correct in his brilliantly pithy definition. But like much of existentialist thinking his definition paradoxically makes death something objective, impersonal, and abstract. Heidegger refers to everyone’s death not to my death. My death is an impossibility to conceive despite the fact that it is an event that is more than possible in the relatively near future.
Yalom recounts dozens of case histories from his practice as a psychiatrist. They all involve, according to him, the repression of the fear of death. Such repression manifests itself in a range of neurotic symptoms from depression to downright destructive behaviour. Achieving recognition by his clients that the core of their problem is a hidden fear of death is Yalom’s goal.
Yalom is an existentialist himself but his profession demands at least a nodding respect for Freudian psychoanalysis, which he duly gives. But he also notes that Freud was a bit too keen on tracing all neuroses to sex. The problem is that Yalom seems to simply substitute death for sex as the universal issue that we all must address. All his cases are examples of the Universal Case, as it were, which is something, surely, that none of us need to be reminded of.
Yalom connects the fear of death to human consciousness. Without self-consciousness, he says, we would move from existence to non-existence without the baggage of the crippling neuroses that many appear to have. But note that the squirrel, the toad, the cat fear being killed as well, and they don’t have the human capacity for consciousness. Animals fear death but don’t become neurotic about it, or not so much as anyone has noticed.
So Yalom may not have thought this out thoroughly. Animals may be subject to cruelty, loss, or deprivation in their young lives which makes them skittish, fearful, aggressive, or even murderous in later life when the general conditions of the cruelty, loss, or deprivation recur. They have learned to be afraid, hostile, or aggressive when conditions demand it. But the essential difference with the species homo sapiens is: not a second before.
The human beings that Yalom discusses fear not that which is external to them, but what’s in their head. They don’t respond appropriately to some set of external conditions; they carry the original experience around with them more or less continuously, watching it erupt in inappropriate situations. What are they responding to?
The problem may not be the fear of death at all, but the incomprehensibility of my own death. My death is an unexplainable phenomenon. It literally has no meaning I can find - not in the history of death among my family and friends, nor in the case studies of Yalom. These all fit with the Heideggerian definition. But none of them have anything at all to do with the possibility of the impossibility of my own transition to nothingness. They make death a linguistic event, which I find somewhat distasteful as well as false and misleading, as if we could understand it if we simply talked about it enough.
Could it be that the meaningless of death is the source, not of fear, but of a justifiable breakdown of human intellect, including language, that great differential of humanity? Confusion, doubt, bewilderment, feelings of disorder (or on the other hand feelings of expectant relief), anger, fraud perhaps, even wonder are, it seems to me, equally likely responses if that is the case. And all are equally inadequate. It would seem to me that this intellectual breakdown constitutes the only breakthrough possible, namely that there is no way to put my death into words or, therefore, to contemplate it usefully.
The inevitability of death, therefore, and whatever childhood experiences may have provoked its recognition, is not the issue. Yalom’s clients seem to confirm this. Inevitability is something they know and in a way cherish as the only thing to do know and they’re generally comfortable with that. The acceptance of our utter inability to capture anything else about my death in language, for me, seems a sort of release - not from fear but from the tedious business of having to uselessly think, or talk, about it any more. Yes, very much like staring at the sun.
Postscript: By chance another GR reader sent me a paragraph by Nabokov which I find apropos to this discussion of death. It both confirms and contradicts what I have to say. But it also suggests that most of us are already dead anyhow. This may be a way to talk about death productively, namely as our temporary existence as essentially artistic artifacts:
The transition from being to non-being is one impossible to conceive. Its one word description, death, tells us nothing about it that is comprehensible. The word points to something which is the equivalent of a God of whom we can know absolutely nothing. Death is, therefore, an intellectual impossibility, a contradiction, a one-word oxymoron. Hence the inversion in my title of Yalom’s quote from Martin Heidegger: “Death is the impossibility of further possibility.”
Heidegger is certainly correct in his brilliantly pithy definition. But like much of existentialist thinking his definition paradoxically makes death something objective, impersonal, and abstract. Heidegger refers to everyone’s death not to my death. My death is an impossibility to conceive despite the fact that it is an event that is more than possible in the relatively near future.
Yalom recounts dozens of case histories from his practice as a psychiatrist. They all involve, according to him, the repression of the fear of death. Such repression manifests itself in a range of neurotic symptoms from depression to downright destructive behaviour. Achieving recognition by his clients that the core of their problem is a hidden fear of death is Yalom’s goal.
Yalom is an existentialist himself but his profession demands at least a nodding respect for Freudian psychoanalysis, which he duly gives. But he also notes that Freud was a bit too keen on tracing all neuroses to sex. The problem is that Yalom seems to simply substitute death for sex as the universal issue that we all must address. All his cases are examples of the Universal Case, as it were, which is something, surely, that none of us need to be reminded of.
Yalom connects the fear of death to human consciousness. Without self-consciousness, he says, we would move from existence to non-existence without the baggage of the crippling neuroses that many appear to have. But note that the squirrel, the toad, the cat fear being killed as well, and they don’t have the human capacity for consciousness. Animals fear death but don’t become neurotic about it, or not so much as anyone has noticed.
So Yalom may not have thought this out thoroughly. Animals may be subject to cruelty, loss, or deprivation in their young lives which makes them skittish, fearful, aggressive, or even murderous in later life when the general conditions of the cruelty, loss, or deprivation recur. They have learned to be afraid, hostile, or aggressive when conditions demand it. But the essential difference with the species homo sapiens is: not a second before.
The human beings that Yalom discusses fear not that which is external to them, but what’s in their head. They don’t respond appropriately to some set of external conditions; they carry the original experience around with them more or less continuously, watching it erupt in inappropriate situations. What are they responding to?
The problem may not be the fear of death at all, but the incomprehensibility of my own death. My death is an unexplainable phenomenon. It literally has no meaning I can find - not in the history of death among my family and friends, nor in the case studies of Yalom. These all fit with the Heideggerian definition. But none of them have anything at all to do with the possibility of the impossibility of my own transition to nothingness. They make death a linguistic event, which I find somewhat distasteful as well as false and misleading, as if we could understand it if we simply talked about it enough.
Could it be that the meaningless of death is the source, not of fear, but of a justifiable breakdown of human intellect, including language, that great differential of humanity? Confusion, doubt, bewilderment, feelings of disorder (or on the other hand feelings of expectant relief), anger, fraud perhaps, even wonder are, it seems to me, equally likely responses if that is the case. And all are equally inadequate. It would seem to me that this intellectual breakdown constitutes the only breakthrough possible, namely that there is no way to put my death into words or, therefore, to contemplate it usefully.
The inevitability of death, therefore, and whatever childhood experiences may have provoked its recognition, is not the issue. Yalom’s clients seem to confirm this. Inevitability is something they know and in a way cherish as the only thing to do know and they’re generally comfortable with that. The acceptance of our utter inability to capture anything else about my death in language, for me, seems a sort of release - not from fear but from the tedious business of having to uselessly think, or talk, about it any more. Yes, very much like staring at the sun.
Postscript: By chance another GR reader sent me a paragraph by Nabokov which I find apropos to this discussion of death. It both confirms and contradicts what I have to say. But it also suggests that most of us are already dead anyhow. This may be a way to talk about death productively, namely as our temporary existence as essentially artistic artifacts:
We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing. We take it for granted so simply that in a sense, by the very act of brutish routine acceptance, we undo the work of the ages, the history of the gradual elaboration of poetical description and construction, from the treeman to Browning, from the caveman to Keats. What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read? I wish you to gasp not only at what you read but at the miracle of its being readable.
medium-paced
Great book indeed, full of useful and practical insights and advises.
I did not feel conscious death anxiety, but after reading the book realized some of my anxieties and fears might very well stem from the terror of death, and that's enlightening.
I did not feel conscious death anxiety, but after reading the book realized some of my anxieties and fears might very well stem from the terror of death, and that's enlightening.
reflective
medium-paced
با اینکه کتاب حول محور مفهوم ترس از مرگ بود ولی حرفهای خیلی زیادی برای عرضه کردن داشت.
از راههای تشخیص اظطراب مرگ پنهان، تلاش برای معنا دادن به زندگی انسان هنگام رویارویی با مرگ، استفاده از عقاید فیلسوفان و بقیه بزرگان مخصوصا با تاکید بر آموزههای اپیکور و نیچه، آگاهی از مرگ و درنهایت پرداختن به اظطراب مرگ از جانب رواندرمانگران صحبت کرده بود.
نکتهی جالبش که کتاب رو برای من فوقالعاده جذاب میکرد مثالهای زیادی بود که یالوم از بیماران تحت رواندرمانی توسط خودش بیان میکرد. انگار پای صحبت همهی اونها نشسته بودم و پیوسته درحال یادگیری از تک تک اون افراد و نه فقط حرفهای خود یالوم بودم!
از راههای تشخیص اظطراب مرگ پنهان، تلاش برای معنا دادن به زندگی انسان هنگام رویارویی با مرگ، استفاده از عقاید فیلسوفان و بقیه بزرگان مخصوصا با تاکید بر آموزههای اپیکور و نیچه، آگاهی از مرگ و درنهایت پرداختن به اظطراب مرگ از جانب رواندرمانگران صحبت کرده بود.
نکتهی جالبش که کتاب رو برای من فوقالعاده جذاب میکرد مثالهای زیادی بود که یالوم از بیماران تحت رواندرمانی توسط خودش بیان میکرد. انگار پای صحبت همهی اونها نشسته بودم و پیوسته درحال یادگیری از تک تک اون افراد و نه فقط حرفهای خود یالوم بودم!
This is actually my second time reading this book. I originally read it in 2009 as part of a college course on death, but reading it now has given it much greater meaning as it deals with thought about existence and mortality that became more present after college graduation and leaving the bastion of infinite vitality that college dorms tend to be.
Reading this in tandem with the Dalai Lama's "The Art of Happiness" was a happy accident, as the two texts dovetail well in their content and ideas-- though Yalom comes form a strictly secular perspective.
I felt that Yalom got repetitive in places, harkening back to stories he'd already told us in order to make another point about them (my grandparents do this as well, come to think of it), but I'm giving it five stars anyway because like some other collegiate texts I loved, the ideas Yalom presented keep appearing elsewhere (in interactions with friends, in mining my own personal history, and in the stories I'm reading). When someone is able to take something theoretical and turn it into an understandable framework for analyzing life, love, and literature among other things, I find tremendous value in that.
Reading this in tandem with the Dalai Lama's "The Art of Happiness" was a happy accident, as the two texts dovetail well in their content and ideas-- though Yalom comes form a strictly secular perspective.
I felt that Yalom got repetitive in places, harkening back to stories he'd already told us in order to make another point about them (my grandparents do this as well, come to think of it), but I'm giving it five stars anyway because like some other collegiate texts I loved, the ideas Yalom presented keep appearing elsewhere (in interactions with friends, in mining my own personal history, and in the stories I'm reading). When someone is able to take something theoretical and turn it into an understandable framework for analyzing life, love, and literature among other things, I find tremendous value in that.
After reading Yalom's memoir, Becoming Myself, I was intrigued enough to pick up one of his more explicitly psychological works. If I'm being completely honest, there's just something about this guy that kind of bugs me—it was present in the memoir and it's even more present here. He says he reads his own works to assuage his fears of death, asks a female patient how often she thinks of him throughout the week, and tells another therapist friend that every male therapist fantasizes about their young, female patients. He justifies all of this as part of his therapeutic approach and research, but it still just all felt so weird to me. Obviously, that's a small part of the book but it sort of tainted everything else. For all the awkwardness of his personality, he does cite a lot of great information about overcoming death anxiety, but I've found the thinkers he admires (Nietzsche, Ernest Becker, Epicurus, etc.) a little more eloquent and certainly less creepy than him.
It was different concept that I had originally thought, but it did help me see things in a different light.
3.5
A few months ago, after having several sleepless nights and panic attacks I found out that I have death anxiety. Which isn't really surprising when you counter the fact that we are living in 2020! I spent countless hours on YouTube, blog posts and Reddit to find a "cure" for my anxiety but came to no conclusion whatsoever.
When I told the matter to my therapist, she recommended this book to me. The seemingly perfect book for someone who has death anxiety, a book that's about a therapist dealing with patients with the same condition.
I read this book in hope to find a solution to overcoming my fear of death, to finally have a 7-hour sleep session, to not experience that sensation of another panic attack coming and I guess I was asking too much from it!
The book didn't particularly give a solution, and even if it did, they were too "obvious" and "cliche" (You can't experience death because you're already dead, death gives a meaning to every second for your life and so on...).
But given the fact that I got to read about people with the same condition as me, it served as a source of reassurance. And the fact that I completely understood where they're coming from made it equally hard and comforting to read.
Overall not anything unique, but a great starting point for overcoming my fear I guess:))
A few months ago, after having several sleepless nights and panic attacks I found out that I have death anxiety. Which isn't really surprising when you counter the fact that we are living in 2020! I spent countless hours on YouTube, blog posts and Reddit to find a "cure" for my anxiety but came to no conclusion whatsoever.
When I told the matter to my therapist, she recommended this book to me. The seemingly perfect book for someone who has death anxiety, a book that's about a therapist dealing with patients with the same condition.
I read this book in hope to find a solution to overcoming my fear of death, to finally have a 7-hour sleep session, to not experience that sensation of another panic attack coming and I guess I was asking too much from it!
The book didn't particularly give a solution, and even if it did, they were too "obvious" and "cliche" (You can't experience death because you're already dead, death gives a meaning to every second for your life and so on...).
But given the fact that I got to read about people with the same condition as me, it served as a source of reassurance. And the fact that I completely understood where they're coming from made it equally hard and comforting to read.
Overall not anything unique, but a great starting point for overcoming my fear I guess:))