Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

According to Irvin D. Yalom, people can be so consumed with their own mortality that they become crippled by "unmanageable death anxiety." This disorder manifests in ways that include anxiety attacks, bad dreams, and depression. Dr. Yalom believes that this is a key psychological problem, one that goes even deeper than Freud's emphasis on sexual repression. Therefore, he's based his practice on helping people overcome this issue and enjoy life to the fullest. I found "Staring at the Sun" to be an intriguing and readable book, not to mention helpful for my own battles with this issue. It should be noted up front that the author is not religious. If his patient follows a certain faith, Dr. Yalom encourages his or her belief if it is helpful to the healing process. But he is a rationalist who is more in line with evolutionary thought and secular philosophy than with spiritual leanings. His treatment methods include guided dream interpretation, and encouraging awakening experiences as a form of existential shock therapy. Along those lines, Dr. Yalom advocates some of the philosophical teachings of Epicurus, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer to help his patients come to terms with their mortality and cultivate the ability to "create the fate that [they] can love." There is much to like about this book. I admired the author's candor about his own fears of impending death at the age of 76, and how his struggles have enabled him to help others in the same boat. In addition, I appreciated the personal touch he brings to his practice, including appropriate self-revelation and a commitment to help his patients even at inconvenient times. I got the sense that he truly cares about them, but still manages to maintain appropriate boundaries without being rigid or condescending. Finally, his tactics of "rippling" (positively influencing others with one's life), forming genuine connections with people, living free from regret (or using what regret you have to avoid more of it), and internalizing life-affirming philosophies to achieve a holistic strategy for living well makes sense to me. Indeed, if he practiced close by, I'd make an appointment with him. However, I had a couple of minor blind spots with "Staring at the Sun." First, as part of treatment, the author recommends activities that his patients may already be doing - achievement, relationships, taking risks, etc. I inferred that internal motivation is the major defining factor here, but I wish he would've made that idea clearer. Along those lines, does eliminating death anxiety make one a better person? Changing selfishness to selflessness is a whole different ballgame. I'm not certain that curing the fear of death automatically makes one more altruistic. Nihilism is a danger here, especially if the patient takes a wrong turn into Nietzsche's darker corners. Also, he brought up some other tantalizing angles that I wanted to hear more about, such as the illusion of upward mobility. That'

***** "Staring at the Sun" is the eminent psychiatrist Irvin Yalom's latest book based upon the premise that not just many, but all of our fears---fears that on the surface seem to be something else---are in actuality, the fear of death. However, this is not a depressing book. Understanding and accepting death anxiety can bring us to a greater appreciation of life. The author writes, "Death awareness may serve as an awakening experience, a profoundly useful catalyst for major life changes." The book explores how this might be. The second to the last chapter of the book is a memoir of the author's own personal encounters with death anxiety and his reflections in anticipation of his own death. I found this chapter to be moving and poignant. The last chapter is written specifically for therapists. The entire book includes stories from the author's psychotherapeutic practice. The print is large and easy to read. The book includes a reader's guide in the back that would be helpful for book clubs and self-help or other therapeutic groups. I thought this book was wise above all, brave, human, personal, and inspirational without being religious or even spiritual. Highly recommended. *****

Is there any subject people are less willing to discuss than death? In America, only the taboos surrounding talk about personal income are more strictly enforced. And yet birth and death -- one necessary, the other inevitable -- are the two life events we share with every other human being. Why not share our feelings, fears, and hopes about the latter as well? Of course traditional religionists have done so for centuries. By asserting the existence of a desirable afterlife and mapping out a path to it, they attempt to remove the sting from mortality and to improve people's behavior while they're alive. Results of these attempts have varied, which suggests that simple faith may not be the answer -- at least not the only answer. For the rest of us, psychiatrist Irvin Yalom has written a concise, extremely readable guide to dealing with death anxiety, whether it manifests itself directly, as an explicit, conscious stream of fearful thoughts about dying, or indirectly, in the dozens of neurotic behaviors that people invoke to stave off the growing sense that sooner or later, they too will die. Yalom uses an approach he calls "existential psychotherapy," which is rooted more in the wisdom of classical Greek philosophers, especially Epicurus, than in the traditional psychological work of such figures as Freud, Jung, or Skinner. He interleaves this valuable body of thought, so often ignored today, with case histories from his many years of therapeutic work with groups and individuals. This is a familiar format for self-help books, but that's because it works. We get the distilled principles from the Greeks, from Nietzsche, from others too, and then we get humanized examples, little stories that we can remember and relate to. Yalom handles the format extremely well, with no wasted anecdotes, no pointlessly extended explanations, and no posturing about the gravity of the topic. He becomes our compassionate and fearless guide to the issues, which is itself enormously comforting. If someone this smart can be scared of death, then it must be alright for the rest of us to own up to some fear -- and yet persist in the necessary tasks of self-discovery. Full disclosure: I don't read many self-help or psychology books. I leaped at the chance to read this one because I had already realized that some of my previous misadventures -- like the classic mid-life crisis I experienced at 45 -- were triggered in large part by death anxiety. A couple of recent major illnesses have renewed my awareness of mortality. I want to live well, in whatever time I have remaining, and Irvin Yalom's book will help me do that. His advice is sound. The approaches he suggests are both practical and comforting. I don't want to say too much here about the specific wisdom in "Staring at the Sun." (You need to buy the book, stupid!) Here is a brief summary of its contents. Following an introductory chapter, there are six remaining chapters, five of which will be useful to nearly every r

I was expecting this book to be somewhat heavy and depressing, but I was pleasantly surprised. If you want some sugar-coated platitudes about the afterlife, don't buy this book. If you are looking for advice on making the most out of life by coming to grips with your own mortality, this book is for you. Many Buddhist teachings ask us to contemplate our own deaths as a way of developing compassion, and this can be a very difficult process. The rewards, however, are tremendous. Dr. Yalom takes an existential view of mortality and discusses tools that we can use to come to grips with death and step out of its shadow by making the most of the time we are given. The book is filled with anecdotes from he author's psychotherapy practice and I especially enjoyed his analysis of his own feelings about death. Although the author doesn't believe in an afterlife, he does not denigrate those who do, but rather suggests that we are all better served by reaching out to others and making connections with humanity that will ripple through time and the lives of others who may be only remotely connected to us today. I was uplifted by this book and would have given it ten stars if I could. This is one of the few books that you will find has the potential to change your life.

In "Staring at the Sun," psychiatrist and Stanford University professor Irvin D. Yalom confronts one of humanity's greatest fears: the terror of death. Yalom, who is in his seventies, admits that he has pondered the psychological and philosophical implications of his own mortality. In addition, Dr. Yalom discusses his patients, many of whom have been shaken by the loss of a loved one, professional failures, or romantic disappointments. Their frustrations sometimes translate into a fear of death, because as we age, we may come to fear that we will never have enough time to accomplish our goals. If we were to think constantly about death, it would be like "trying to stare at the sun in the face: You can stand only so much of it." Therefore, as a form of self-protection, many of us avoid the subject entirely. After all, we are busy enough attending to life's routines. Work, marriage, raising a family, making friends, cultivating hobbies, and participating in communal and charitable endeavors can take up a great deal of time. Why contemplate an unpleasant subject that can lead to unhappiness and depression? No matter how we may try to ignore it, however, certain life events bring death to the fore, such as a milestone birthday, a serious illness, divorce, retirement, or grown children leaving home. Any such transition can traumatize a vulnerable individual. The author is a non-observant Jew who does not believe in a divine entity; therefore, he does not rely on religion for comfort. Instead, he turns to philosophers such as Epicurus, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer for guidance. Those who worship a deity may be put off by Yalom's staunch secularism. Still, this book does offer a common sense approach that anyone can implement, no matter what his beliefs. Yalom advises us to spend our lives doing work that we love, so that we will not look back at our youth with regret; to reach out and form meaningful interpersonal relationships--connectedness reduces isolation; to be bold in making necessary lifestyle changes that can bring us greater contentment; to take comfort from the "rippling" effect of our good deeds. Live in the moment, he urges, and make each day count. This seems like obvious advice, but common sense is anything but common; Yalom reminds us of behaviors that we may mean to adopt but, for some reason, do not. Dr. Yalom puts great store in the power of dreams to reveal the secrets locked in our subconscious minds. He recounts and analyzes his own as well as his patients' dreams, discussing at length how many of us grapple with our fear of death symbolically. Yalom analyzes the imagery of dreams, and he uses the knowledge gained from this analysis to work out his clients' emotional issues in a therapeutic setting. Knowing that we are all destined to die can motivate us to focus more on our everyday lives. If we take our mortality seriously, we are more likely to use the time we have left productively. St. Augustine sa