Customer Reviews

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

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*****

"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.

*****

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's a key issue for men at midlife who are confronted with their mortality via physical decline and dwindling life options (like me).

In "Staring at the Sun," Dr. Yalom has done an excellent job of defining the fear of death as a key psychological health issue, and also creating a successful path of treatment. More importantly, he's made his ideas available to a wide audience in an interesting and accessible manner. Even the chapter dedicated to therapists is, as the author recommends, readable by laypersons - especially since it will help him or her avoid a bad shrink and select a good one instead.

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 said, "It is only in the face of death that a man's self is born." Power, money, honors, and possessions cannot protect us from the fate that awaits us all. Yalom advises us to "keep in mind the advantage of remaining aware of death, of hugging its shadow to you. Such awareness can integrate the darkness with your spark of life and enhance your life while you still have it." It is never too late, Yalom asserts, to "make substantial positive changes."

"Staring at the Sun" is a beautiful gift given by a thoughtful and compassionate man to those of us who are receptive to his words. Rather than plunging into existential despair or having plastic surgery in an attempt to recapture our lost youth, we can choose to celebrate the years that we have left by living them as well as we can. "Staring at the Sun" is an eloquent, literate, and deeply personal book by a humane and compassionate therapist who is not too proud to admit his own vulnerabilities. Irvin Yalom truly lives by the famous words of the Roman writer, Terence: "Nothing human is alien to me."

In psychiatrist Irvin Yalom's new book on overcoming the terror of death and dying, Staring at the Sun, he takes us into his practice and shares the stories of his patients, whom he attempts to help using something he calls existential psychotherapy. Yalom is an amateur philosopher who has written novels about Schopenhauer (The Schopenhauer Cure) and Nietzsche (When Nietzsche Wept). He uses the insights of these men to help his patients understand and come to terms with their anxiety and fears.

For me, the most interesting parts of his book concern his insights on the philosophers mentioned. He summarizes or quotes appropriate portions of their work as it relates to his psychiatric practice. I was so impressed with the value of this material that I read The Schopenhauer Cure and then bought a book of Schopenhauer's essays.

The Schopenhauer Cure is the novelistic counterpart to Staring at the Sun. In this novel a dying psychiatrist uses Schopenhauer to assist his patients in group therapy. Again, as in Staring at the Sun, I found the biographical information on Schopenhauer and the summaries of his philosophy to be the most interesting and valuable portion of the novel.

Not as successful, I think, are the many summaries of Yalom's work with his patients in Staring at the Sun. I would have preferred a tight summary of each case with Yalom's thoughts about understanding the meaning of death and how we can face it with courage and understanding. Perhaps the best example of effective counsel about the meaning of death comes from Plato's dialogues concerning the death of Socrates, who examines the possibilities of what happens at death and then accepts as good this end of life.

Readers who are able to skim through the lengthy descriptions of Yalom's case studies will discover, occasionally, some wise words from Yalom and his favorite philosophers. They may find Staring at the Sun worth the time and effort. Recommended with noted reservations

STARING AT THE SUN: OVERCOMING THE TERROR OF DEATH by Irvin D Yalom

February 9, 2008

Rating 4/5 stars

Having been told I have anxiety disorder and learning that this equated to a fear of death, I jumped at the opportunity to read STARING AT THE SUN. This is my first book by Irvin D Yalom, and I was very impressed with the contents and writing style of a topic that can be pretty heavy duty. Yalom discusses anxiety and the fear of death by throwing in examples from the patients he's known, each of them having diverse symptoms and traits, but all of them having a fear of death. A lot of what he went over I already knew from therapy, and it was good to see it all in print. He also talks of methods to use to help overcome this fear, helping many of us to cope with daily anxiety and to learn to relax and live life as if THERE IS A TOMORROW.

Case studies include a woman who fears death by stating that she had so many things to do before she died. It's a classic case, in which I can relate to, where one cannot relax until one's ever growing to-do lists are completed. It's the unlived life that many fear, the fear of not accomplishing everything one had meant to do throughout a life time, but for some they feel this life may end too soon, thus the anxiety to finish things before it's too late.

Others begin to have anxiety after the death of someone close, possibly a husband or a close friend. Often times any life-changing event can set off anxiety. In each case, Yalom gives explicit details of a particular patient, using a very reader-friendly voice that most readers will feel comfortable with.

The only chapter that I felt was not as reader-friendly was the last, in which he warns the reader that this particular chapter is aimed at therapists. It is still helpful to read this last chapter, but I felt my eyes were glazing over at times, as it was a little too technical for me.

I found STARING AT THE SUN a fascinating and informative book regarding anxiety and the fear of death. While I may have a long way to go in conquering my own fears, I feel that this book was helpful enough in that it confirmed a lot of what I've learned about anxiety over the past nine months or so. I definitely recommend STARING AT THE SUN.

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.

Dr. Irvin Yalom is emeritus Professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. In this book he is asserting that the terror of death is the main root of everyone's problems. Facing our own mortality is not a new topic by any means. It is as if the author is trying to replace Freud's theory on repression of sexuality with his own on death anxiety.

With his theory based on the existential philosophy of Epicurus he shares with us his observations of his clients whom he diagnosed as having death anxiety. We are given an insight to his secular point of view and his practical existential psychotherapeutic approach. The author also shares his own life experiences with the reader. He draws on philosophy for his treatment and shows a concern and respect for his patients.

In today's world for those without faith I can see where this book would be an aid in reminding one that death is just a part of life and must be accepted. One should make the most of their life. As the author quotes in his book, `that learning to live well is learning to die well and that, conversely, learning to die well is learning to live well." This was worth reading. I would also recommend reading Dietrich Von Hildebrand book on death that he wrote toward the end of his own life for a different point of view.

Dr. Yalom has once again graced us with his healing presence. In "Staring at the Sun", Dr. Yalom grapples with personal terror about death, bringing philosophical and psychological resources to bear on the problem. Finding solace in the writings of Epicurus and in his work as a psychotherapist, Dr. Yalom works to convey the wisdom he has garnered over his many years of practice for the benefit of his patients, his reading audience and himself.

What is so enlivening and inspiring in Dr. Yalom's writing is here again to enjoy. As a practicing psychiatrist whose practice is primarily psychotherapy, I credit Dr. Yalom for influencing the style I have developed. His emphasis on the "here and now" and his recognition of the healing power of the relationship, as well as his willingness to acknowledge his own personal reactions inspired and continues to inspire me. His chapter devoted to therapists is particularly helpful. I so appreciate his willingness to openly share how he practices and acknowledge where he differs from traditional perspectives.

I also appreciate Dr. Yalom's personal reflections and his willingness to share his own struggles with death terror. It is clear that the writings of Epicurus are personally helpful to him. Like all therapists, he has been at times perhaps too eager to extend these insights to his patients in the hope they will have the same effect. As we have all come to learn, it is most important to get as close to the patient's own experiences and to work from within the patient's worldview. As his clinical vignettes illustrate, Dr. Yalom understands this principle perfectly -- and he is honest enough to indicate that at times he has deviated from it.

My one disappointment with Dr. Yalom's presentation is his coarse handling of religious worldviews. He seems to believe that the religious impulse is just a psychological defense against death terror, and therefore represents a cognitive distortion to avoid facing The Truth. Anyone already familiar with Dr. Yalom's existentialist commitment would not find this surprising. So apparent to Dr. Yalom is the absolute truth of this existentialist perspective that he almost cannot help but be a little disparaging toward those with some religious commitment. In this way, he resembles Richard Dawkins, the well-known defender of Darwinian Evolution and Atheism, who Yalom mentions as a philosophical comrade-in-arms.

Perhaps this is not at all a problem with the book. It may be that the number of religiously inclined people who suffer from death terror is negligibly small, and therefore they don't represent a significant portion of the reading audience. But, though I don't suffer from death terror (just a normal smoldering death angst), I felt very connected to Dr. Yalom through the majority of the book until we got to that part, and then I felt a bit distanced. And that's not because I am religiously observant - in fact I'm not. But where Epicurus, Nietzsche and Dawkins have been important to Dr. Yalom, Martin Buber, C.S. Lewis and David Berlinski have been important to me. The question about which came first, Mind or Matter, still seems to me to be an open one, and there are smart people on both sides of the issue.

Still, the insight and perspective that Dr. Yalom brings is well worth engaging. I recommend this book to therapists and anyone suffering from death terror, though I don't believe it is a substitute for what psychotherapy can offer. I believe many at least will get a taste of what good psychotherapy looks like. If the book prompts some people to enter psychotherapy, and perhaps others to follow in Dr. Yalom's footsteps to train in psychodynamic psychotherapy, it will have done a great service.

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 reader. The seventh is designed for other therapists, and it is more focused on Yalom's broad experience as an existential psychotherapist. My attention wandered while reading it.

Chapter two discusses ways of recognizing covert death anxiety. Chapter three, "The Awakening Experience," dispels the notion that personal awareness of mortality leads to despair -- quite the contrary. Chapters four and five are the heart of the book, in which Yalom explicates, individually and in combination, the great ideas that philosophers, artists, writers, and psychologists have bequeathed us on the subject of mortality. Chapter six is more autobiographical: Yalom is pretty fearless.

The book is short enough that it can be re-read frequently. That is probably the best approach. You'll certainly find yourself thinking about the techniques and attitudes he suggests: my personal favorite is "rippling." Be nice to yourself this week; pick up a copy and discover what Yalom means by that.

Irvin Yalom, a psychiatrist, has both medical and academic credentials out the wazoo, but he writes here as a man concerned both with his own approach to mortality and with relieving the fear of death in others. He most frequently makes his points through brief case histories of patients he has counseled about facing death.

As the man says, it is difficult to contemplate our own deaths. Sit down to concentrate on the subject of your own annihilation, and---why, a moment later you are thinking about something else; the mind has shied away from the entire subject. Death is a topic most of us are happy to avoid. All we can really do is enjoy the experiences life offers, and accept that death is the price we pay for that awareness. We can admonish ourselves, as we might admonish a child, that we should eat what is set before us without undue complaint.

An entire book of rational consideration of the matter, not as a matter of philosophical speculation, but as a topic of interest to the average person, is a rarity. There is no religious consolation offered here; the hope of an afterlife is seen as no more than a denial of the reality of death. What we need to do is accept our own mortality so that we can become free to enjoy our lives in the here and now.

I feel a certain gratitude toward the author, in that his book contained one patient's history--that of an elderly woman who had a problem with uncontrolled anger toward other people and the situations in which she found herself--that gave me new insight into the problems being faced by a relative of mine, one whose temper has often seemed irrational in the past. When viewed as an expression of her frustration at her increasing lack of control over her life at a very advanced age, the behavior is more easily understood, and I think I will have a better experience with her from now on. And on that account alone, I would have given this book five stars.

There is one other reason--the very audacity of it elicits admiration. Some criticize the method. Some may think psychotherapy is out-of-date; some may think that the meanings of dreams lie mostly in the imagination of the analyst. No matter. Here is an older man honestly facing the nearness of his own death and still volunteering to be a guide and a consolation to others approaching that voyage into the utterly unknown. In laying before us this offer of honesty and compassion, Dr. Yalom shows the desire to help, the fellow-feeling, that is humanity at its best.