Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death | 
 enlarge | Author: Irvin D. Yalom
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  78 reviews
Sales Rank: 3114
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1
ISBN: 0787996688
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.937
EAN: 9780787996680
ASIN: 0787996688
Publication Date: February 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
Written in Irv Yalom’s inimitable story-telling style, Staring at the Sun is a profoundly encouraging approach to the universal issue of mortality. In this magisterial opus, capping a lifetime of work and personal experience, Dr. Yalom helps us recognize that the fear of death is at the heart of much of our anxiety. Such recognition is often catalyzed by an “awakening experience”—a dream, or loss (the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job or home), illness, trauma, or aging. Once we confront our own mortality, Dr. Yalom writes, we are inspired to rearrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal fulfillment.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 73 more reviews...
Always illuminating July 24, 2008
I've read Irvin Yalom for years. I've read his text books while at college (I'm a group psychotherapist, which is his speciality) and loved his book Love's Executioner. I was less happy with Momma and the Meaning of Life. This book falls between the two. It has more of the poetry of Love's Executioner but is a little existential for me (which is not his fault at all, he's very up front about being an existential psychotherapist.)
I loved the philosophical background/analysis, and found a lot of it to be very valuable. But his dismissal of any fundamental religious beliefs to be 'death denial' (an echo of Freud) is something I just can't agree with and certainly nothing I would subtly pitch to a patient. I find the exact opposite - knowing that humans are not the top of the chain, but simply beings in it, and that there is a higher intelligence present can be just as calming and centering as facing death sternly knowing that there is nothing after it.
So I liked his writing and certainly learnt a lot, and that's always appreciated (I read plenty of books where I learn little!) I always admire Yalom and was pleased to him more 'back on track'. But if you have a deeply religious viewpoint or are (as I am) a bit new age in your thinking, then some of this book won't speak to you.
 Penetrating analysis of death anxiety July 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A direct and courageous look at the fear of death, a fear that lurks in all of us; a fear whose very name so often gives rise to anxiety. Yalom has turned his penetrating gaze at death anxiety - how we experience or deny it, how it affects our internal and external life, how we may identify it, how we may ameliorate it and, most important of all, how staring down death may lead to a better way of life. As always, Yalom's prose is sparkling and lucid. This is a truly important, inspiring, and uplifting book.
 Staring at the Sun July 8, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I imagine this is probably Yalom's last work before his own death, or at least his last work that really deals with death anxiety and overcoming it. Without getting into a long diatribe about basic squabbles that Yalom appears to have never addressed (ex: how does one prove death anxiety underlies so much of our existence?), I just didn't find the book that fulfilling.
When I saw that it was coming out I was really excited, thinking perhaps this great mind who has thought about and wrestled with these issues would be able to shed some real light on overcoming death anxiety. Instead, it just consisted of a bunch of case studies that seemed to blur together throughout the course of the book. It really amounted to little more to me than rehashing old pieces of advice (become connected with others, be a part of something bigger than yourself, immerse yourself in something) that, at least in my opinion, don't so much help overcome death anxiety as much as they help one not focus on it.
At the end of reading this book I, in all honesty, do not feel even one step closer to overcoming my fear of death. I'm very disappointed this would be the curtain call from such a man about such a topic.
Interesting and thought-provoking, but limited in its practical effectiveness July 1, 2008
I can't think of any non-religious individual more qualified to address the terror of death, man's strongest and most natural fear, than Dr. Irvin D. Yalom. Having recognized that death anxiety is oftentimes at the root of his many patients' problems, he developed his own brand of existential psychology (even as the profession moved away from this type of approach) to help get to the root causes, no matter how hidden they might be from the surface, of many of his patients' problems. Basically, Yalom : Death :: Freud: Sex. The good doctor has also mined the thoughts and insights of many a great philosopher in formulating his psychological world view (his incredible novel, When Nietzsche Wept, is what introduced me to Yalom in the first place). There's also the fact that Yalom is now in his mid-seventies, an age at which you can't help but come to some kind of terms with your own mortality. Never one to isolate his professional self from his patients or readers, Yalom shares his own personal feelings and thoughts to an unprecedented degree in these pages.
Fear of death is the one thing that unites all of mankind. Even our most idyllic days of childhood offer no immunity from it, as that is when most of us are forced to confront death for the first time - be it a grandparent, aunt, pet, etc. Granted, I have the kind of mind that seemingly begs to be someone's case study, but some of my earliest memories had me wondering if I might already be lying dead in my coffin, dreaming my life over again - and I have long predicted that I would die at 42 (I hope I'm wrong, since 42 isn't all that far away now). At least I, as a Christian, know that death is in no way the end; I can't really imagine how atheists could ever come to terms with the looming nothingness awaiting them in their graves. Since Yalom is such an atheist, I was most interested in seeing what he would have to say on the subject.
The basic message I get from this book is that one must identity and then confront one's fear of death, for in doing so you can learn to appreciate life all the more. Yalom talks a lot about the positive correlation between one's sense of "the unlived life" and death anxiety, and it would certainly seem to be true that many individuals (including yours truly) let their fears hold them back from living life to the fullest. To hear Yalom describe cases in which people broke through their walls of fear to find a new and extremely passionate love for life is undeniably inspirational. His is an Epicurean philosophy, and Yalom shows how "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you may die" is a distorted and far too simplistic concept of his favorite philosopher's beliefs. Epicurus, Yalom tell us, believed the whole point of philosophy was to relieve human misery - and that a great deal of said misery was a product of the omnipresent fear of death. Yalom also emphasizes the concept of rippling as a counter argument to the often cited transiency of human life. The things we do and say will affect others on down the line long after we are dead and forgotten. Frankly, the concept of rippling doesn't do a whole lot for me, but it is the kind of argument atheists have to make in order to convince themselves that their lives are not inherently meaningless.
Basically, Yalom tells readers that they can create their own fates, one which they can embrace rather than cower before in fear, and he offers examples of individuals who overcame debilitating death anxiety and emerged as happier, more alive men and women capable of living their lives and connecting with their fellow man in ways they could never have imagined. For my money, though, Yalom's own personal ideas and insights make for the most interesting reading. It's not every day that a leading existential psychologist grants us entry into his most personal and deepest thoughts. Does Yalom succeed in offering "specific methods" with which to battle death anxiety? No, not really, but I will say that I found the book fairly inspirational and thought-provoking. Still, Yalom's personal dismissal of any and all religious beliefs his readers (and undoubtedly a significant number of his patients) may have is a definite weakness that calls into question its ultimate effectiveness. Rooted in secular humanism, though, Staring at the Sun can only take the religious reader so far, for the utter finality of death is not an obstacle of death anxiety that we have to overcome.
 Hollow June 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In his book "Staring at the Sun," Dr. Yalom attempts to convince us that even though our lives are transient, they can have meaning through the influences we leave behind. Anyone who has thought seriously about the transient nature of the world knows that this is bull. The influences we leave behind are just as transient as we are. One day, the earth, probably the universe itself, will cease to exist. Everything we've ever done will be erased. This leads to the conclusion that the existance of the human race itself is pointless. Some say that its purpose is to continue itself or to prevent pain for future generations. However, as Dr. Viktor Frankl said, "Something purposeless does not gain purpose through its continuation." And pain doesn't matter either, in the face of obliteration. Yalom also offers the idea that non-existance erases all pain, but that offers no comfort, either. Better to suffer than to feel nothing at all. However, although I fear death, I think there is good reaso to believe in some sort of afterlife, so I do not believe that life is actually pointless.
The book does have a couple of good points. It has interesting vignettes, and I appreciate Dr. Yalom's insistance that death fears are not displaced fears about other things.
But overall, I found this empty. This book is supposed to help those who are afraid of death, but I think it might end up depressing them even more. If you want to read a good piece on Existentialism, I suggest Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. That book is meaningful because it does not insist on material realism, and leaves possibility for the afterlife.
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