Hour of the Heart by Irvin D. Yalom

Author:Irvin D. Yalom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PSY028000, MED105000, PSY013000, PSY042000, BIO026000, PSY007000, PSY055000, BIO021000
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2024-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Albert’s Anxiety

Albert, a physicist in South Africa, emailed requesting a consultation. A few hours before our meeting, I received this email:

The most essential point I wish to discuss is my fear of death. Since I was a child of eight or nine years, the knowledge of the finiteness of my existence has hit me like a lightning bolt. It has been part of my life since then every day every night—more and more since last year when I turned seventy.

It makes sense that people like Albert seek me out, not only because of my long work on existential concerns but also because our culture does such a poor job of dealing with death. We hide it away, replacing it with euphemism (“passing away,” “going to a better place,” or, as I heard recently from my grandson Adrian, “becoming unalived”), and with stories of eternal life we encounter from folklore and religion alike. Of course the idea of death can certainly be terrifying, but I have no doubt that we exacerbate these fears by collectively burying our heads in the sand. Dying, the one thing that every single one of us will experience, should feature prominently in the way we understand living. I believe that anxiety about death is central to many of the concerns people come to therapy for. Most often this existential fear is buried in the subconscious and manifests in many other ways, often reluctance to engage fully in life—for if one never really lives, one has no real life to lose!—or, conversely, efforts to thumb one’s nose at mortality through death-defying feats like skydiving or constantly seeking the excitement of sexual union. I have often encountered these death anxiety–related tendencies in my patients, and have helped many of them manage these fears without being overcome by them.

While this was familiar territory, I was unsure how much I would have to offer Albert in one session. Serious existential work takes time, as fears of death are deeply rooted and intertwined with our ways of living. At the very least, I thought, I could offer some perspectives that had been helpful to other patients, and perhaps share some of my own recent experiences of staring death straight in the eye.

As Albert and I faced each other on Zoom, I saw a thoughtful, energetic, white-haired man. “Professor Yalom,” he began, “I’m delighted to meet with you. I’m a professor of physics and please allow me to say something I have not said to anyone for decades: I’ve long been a student of your work and I am thrilled at the opportunity to meet you face-to-face.”

That stopped me for a moment. I’d never met a physicist who was familiar with my work.

“Shall we be informal and use first names?” I asked. “You, ‘Albert,’ and me, ‘Irv’?”

“How about ‘Professor’ and ‘Professor’?” he said. “Just kidding. By all means, first names, I prefer it. It might be a bit awkward for me at first. You’ve been my teacher for years and I’ve read many of your books and followed you on Facebook.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.