So I was tagged in this internet meme by Dr. Beck, but the problem lies in the books that are around me...HA! Uhh...so the first one I grabbed which is among a stack is "Kokology: The Game of Self-Discovery" which is a fun book/game in itself; however, its pages are made up of rather short snippets, so when I turned to page 123, there was only 7 sentences total ON the page. I decided to move on...
The other things in the stack included stuff like a VHS tape of "Search for Bobby Fischer" (an EXCELLENT movie by the way) and a diary of my friends. Neither of which met the "page 123" criteria.
Turning to my other side in the room is a another stack (believe it or not, my room is actually rather clean and organized--my friends can attest to this, as they like to joke that I'm the one of the three of our close group that they can show up at my house at anytime and not worry about me being embarressed that my room is a mess....HA) which is many movies I have stacked up to hopefully watch at some point in time, and then at the bottom of the stack is four books I used to like to call my "books I'm reading", but being completely honest with myself, they are all books I've started at one point over the past year and haven't picked any of them up in months...HA! From this "stack" I'll use "The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients" by Irvin D. Yalom, M.D. for this meme (even though this one too happens to have a short number of sentences on page 123--it's the end of a chapter, but I'll just proceed into the next chapter to complete the meme).
The meme plays as...
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.
Sooo...
It bursts loose in every nightmare. When we were children we were preoccupied with death and one of our major developmental tasks has been to cope with the fear of obliteration. Death is a visitor in every course of therapy.
~The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients by Irvin D. Yalom, M.D.
Obviously anyone is free to play along with this meme, but for "tagging" purposes, I suppose Kim, Jennifer, Brooke, Katey, & Holly.
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3 comments:
Hmm, I would be interested to know what the rest of that chapter says about our fear of death!
You gotta love Yalom.
Kilax: Allow me (or actually Dr. Yalom) to go on a little more...
To ignore its presence gives the message that it is too terrible to discuss. Yet most therapists avoid direct disccusion of death. Why? Some therapists avoid it because they don't know what to do with death. "What's the point?" they say. "Let's get back to the neurotic process, something we can do something about." Other therapists question the relevance of death to the therapy process and follow the counsel of the great Adolph Meyer, who advised not scratching where it doesn't itch. Still others decline to bring up a subject that inspires great anxiety in an already anxious patient (and in the therapist as well).
Yet there are several good reasons we should confront death in the course of therapy. First, keep in mind that therapy is a deep and comprehensive exploration into the course and meaning of one's life; given the centrality of death in our existence, given that life and death are interdependent, how can we possibly ignore it? From the beginning of written thought humans have realized that everything fades, that we fear the fading, and that we must find a way to live despite the fear and the fading. Psychotherapists cannot afford to ignore the many great thinkers who have concluded that learning to live well is to learn to die well.
And that's it for this very brief chapter entitled "Talk About Death" coming from Dr. Irvin D. Yalom's book "The Gift of Therapy"
Richard Beck: Yes, Yalom is quite quite the interesting fella. Some of his stuff seems really "right on"...but others I'm kinda like..."this dude is a little weird." But it doesn't take me long to remind myself that most of us psychology people ARE strange in our own ways...HA!
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