Summary Of Star At The Sun By Irvin D Yalom

- Irvin D. Yalom (2008) Staring at the sun: overcoming the terror of death is a book that is written by Irvin D. Yalom (2008), who is an existential psychiatrist and an emeritus faculty of Stanford University. Over the past decades, Yalom has impacted the field of existential psychology remarkably, and his ideas contribute to existential psychotherapy as well. In this book, Yalom fully addresses how to overcome one’s inner terror of death by telling multiple affecting stories of his own and his psychotherapy sessions with his clients. While using the existential approach, Yalom is able to provides a comprehensive understanding of why confronting death is important for individuals. At the beginning of the book, Yalom indicates that the fear of death tends to generate negative consequences and symptoms to many individuals, such as anxiety and depression. Thus, he discusses potential …show more content…
Even though each individual may has a different attitude toward death and experiences different a level of fear, death is a topic that everyone faces in life. Thereby, individuals should be aware of their inner feelings in order to solve any potential issues. The problem will not be gone if one try to avoid it, Yalom states that, “The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else…” (54-55) Since avoiding something that one dislikes is not a way to conquer it, an individual needs to confront the dislikes rather than escape from it. Yalom indicates that there are various ways to vanquish the inner fear of death, and the first step is to confront the fear because everyone needs to face it prior to overcoming it. Otherwise, the fear will be there continually if one does not even want to face it. Therefore, being able to face the initial issue is a key to conquer potential