Anti-Aging - Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
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List Price: $24.95
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Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.937
EAN: 9780787996680
ISBN: 0787996688
Label: Jossey-Bass
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2008-02-04
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Studio: Jossey-Bass
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Reduce Your Death Anxiety
Comment: "Death awareness may serve as an awakening experience, a profoundly useful catalyst for major life changes" -From the Book
Using a variety of examples and sessions with clients, books and movies, philosophy and myths, Yalom helps us to explore and understand our fear of and aversion to death.
I found this extremely helpful in easing my own fears of death, I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Look at the Now
Comment: This is a very interesting book about dealing with the Now in your life. When I first read the title of the book, I was afraid the book would be about how faith and religion will help us cope with the inevitability of death, but it doesn't go that route at all. Instead, it deals with living in the Now and living each day, and celebrating the life you're living rather than dreading the future. It is a well thought out book and is extremely uplifting. If you are dealing with the fear of death or your own mortality, this book offers solutions and to these fears and brings them to you in a very "unpreachy" way. I recommend it.
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Summary: An Admirable Attempt to Cure an Incurable Fear
Comment: Irvin Yalom's attempt to cure the fear of death is about as effective as any secular self-help book can provide. His discussion of the ins and outs of death are a wonderful introduction to the fact that--far from what you and I may frequently believe--death happens to everyone, and the indicators and fear and planning that accompany it are merely a fact of life in this 21st century. Perhaps Yalom's greatest asset is his use of personalized stories and annecdotes to prove his point: experiencing the threat and fear of death, which so many diverse individuals do, is an excellent exposure to the process itself. Unfortunatley, in so doing, one risks entering into an onslaught of depression and morbidity that might cause the reader more anguish than assistance.
One of Yalom's key arguments to assuaging one's fear is through friendshp, social connections, etc., which serve to justify one's time on earth and one's memory after death. However, there seems to be--to me, at least--a stark contrast between distracting one's self from the fear of death and actually conquering it, which raises certain questions about the efficacy of socialization. A particularly long chapter on how therapists should deal with death seems out of place--mostly because one assumes that there are more sophisticated and research-based scholarly texts written for the therapists of the world. While the content of this chapter may be fascinating for the layman, I wonder how valuable a real therapist would find it. All in all, however, the ambition of the text serves its purpose, and if one won't conquer the fear of death, one may at least forget it from time to time more easily. As a Christian myself, I will look at the book through a tainted lens and question why Yalom does not provide the most lasting soution to this common fear, but then such a chapter would conflict with the premise of his book.
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Summary: Unconscious denial of death and vulnerability
Comment: Yokum's work does not account for some basic psychodynamic and social psychological work of Ernest Becker. The following is a summary of the theoretical work of Ernest Becker (Pulizter Prize winner Denial of Death 1974) and the experimental work of Sheldon Solomon, et. al. (In the wake of 911)
Please google Ernest Becker or check out wikipedia for more information
1) We are animals first, humans with imaginations second. We live in a dangerous world, in an unsure world where death is just around the cornor. Try to remember your own anxiety as an infant or notice the fearful stages of growth in your children, especially when they realize how dependent they are on the adults. Humanity was also in this state of anxiety in our early history. Tigers were big and all we had were spears. Part of us feels this all time. We feel vulnerable in our animal natures and limited. We strive for growth, mastery and propagation just like every living thing that has ever existed. We crave and greed for anything that represents more abundant and secure biological life - even when it is actually taken care of in our advanced civilization. In the following essay remember we are animals. Thinking animals but animals nevertheless.
2) However, we are social animals - like some herd or pack animals but not at all like big cats, sharks, or hawks. We need each other and the group to compete against other animals and nature. But we also compete with our fellow humans for mastery and status. Knowing our place allows us take on specific jobs in the group and to feel purpose and meaning. We test and gauge our status within the group. We constantly compare ourselves (and judge others) by cultural standards of mastery. Early in history and our physical skills were the important measure but that soon turned to social skills. The function of out direct perceptual senses is guage our level of security, protection and worth within the group. Getting our fellow humans approval and esteem enhances this protection because somebody is literally watching your back. In a sufficiently advanced civlization, when the food supply, healthcare, shelter and education are taken care of the impulse to grow - to have more abundant life - does not go away. That is because the emotional part of us knows we are still limited and vulnerable without our cultural and group protections. So we unconsciously compare worth, significance and power in our society - to find our place in it and to gather as many protectve affliations around us as possible.
3) As our brains evolved and abstraction and symbolic abilities developed we imagined we could be gods! Our situation was so perilous in the wild we tended to make false correlations in nature, thus creating "magic" to allow us to feel more in control. Eventually, our egos created complex systems of symbols representing physical skills. We created institualized ritual to control the environment and its ceremonies to control each other. Magic turned into religion. Religion turned into divine states. Divine states turned into secular society and political philosophies. Thus, magical ritual, religion and its decendent instutions allowed for defined heirarchy, castes, classes and organizational efficiencies.
4) Our egos do not like to hear we have weaknesses or are simply competing status seeking animals, or we are the cause our own suffering or that we are vulnerable, limited and will one day die. So we seek ways of removing our guilt and feelings of vulnerability by latching on to anything or anybody who can make us feel secure, safe and confident that all will be well, and in their care that we will prosper, grow, be significant and live a much fuller life. This is the "heroic impulse". It is pervasive within all cultures except the most simple and egalitarian. We value and acknowledge those symbols (not reality) that which will make us feel safe or make us feel like winners. Of course, this had loads of survival value in the forest because some did have real heroic skills - as hunter gatherers - but the impulse to affliate with the "heroic" has been distorted to an absurd point. Acquisition of possesions, titles, status, large families, and attachment to symbols far and long divorced from actual survival needs is what drives our culture and politics. The impuluse for more, more, more drives our economic systems. In fact, it is OUR need for MORE SECURE LIFE and our unconsciousness of why we desire MORE SECURE LIFE that creates the economic system - a system that depends on 4% growth per year despite that fact that we live in a finite world with finite resources. Unbridled and un-reflective thinking in service of the fear of death is what makes the human animal insane in comparison to other species. The fundamental confusion is taking mere words or concepts to be reality.
6) Biologically, abstracting egos arise from the left hemisphere of the brain. The symbolic processors of the left brain take fear arising from the amygdala and rationalizes an insulating symbolic defense - many of which are words or concepts. The left hemisphere also tends to mask perceptual realities of the right hemisphere since this holistic part does not harbor linguistic processors. The right hemisphere cannot argue for itself even though it harbors many intelligences! This effectively removes feelings of vulnerability and fear from our thinking selves but it also veils broader realities and perceptions that could have survival value. This is a necessary condition for mental health and negotiation in a highly symbolic environments which most people live in. Cultures are systems of symbols that reinforce a consensual strategy against this fear of death. Or, at least, a "social symbolic death" with insignificance or loss of approval among our fellows. Cultural values change as the demands of survival from the environment change. We create complex symbolic absolutist views and cultural sanctioned rituals, rules and behaviors that institutionalize the strategy against death because total faith brings the most confidence. That is why suicide bombers say they love death as much as we love life - they are assured at place in paradise. These emotional displacements provide order and sense of meaning to our world and provide confidence. The value of the concept of immortality, gods and single great hero, God, has provided the greatest sense of relief for many cultures.
7) Furthermore, We create conflict and suffering through mutual exclusive competing symbols within and between our arbitrary rule-bound cultures. Thus, individuals will constantly compare who's up and who's down, one street gang will fight another over graffiti, how clothing is worn, territoral encroachment; soceer games will erupt in violence over a game, republicans and democrats will demean and "symbolically" fight each to other's social death (the inability to influence others). Our egos constantly strive to strengthen its stature compared to others. Our egos are willing to defend, belittle or even fight to the death any symbol or person who threatens our unconscious immortality symbols because our ego's imaginary life is at stake. The impulse to prove oneself right and the other wrong is simply the defense of the ego against imaginary death.
8) Whether it be God, Nirvana or our imagined legacies on earth, or our political philsophies our egos find something to latch on to, no matter where we live. Cultures, religions and all absolutist philosophies exist to provide approval-seeking humans ways of organizing, encouraging, coping, prospering, staving off fear of death and moving civilzation forward toward some imagined good life - even at the expense of present happiness. We are social beings that create our own environments whose need for a sense-of-belonging and self esteem is universal so convienently adopt the prevailing notions that imply worth. The need for human-connection and approval is primary and real, cultural values are secondary and imaginery. This is a very important point!
9) Our egos can be exploited, controlled and abused by those who use our needs, hopes and dreams to suit their own agendas or by those that insist to withdraw their respect unless we tow the cultural line. We all, quite naturally, give our loyalty and our lives to those who best can communicate to our emotions the symbols that promise security and strength but most importantly - a sense of belonging. The sucess of leadership is proportional to the level of alignment of culturally adopted values to the real demands of the environment. Blind following often leads to disaster. Following, a worldview, hero or personal expression is only useful to the extent that it actually haromonizes with the reality of others, other cultures and the physical environment.
10) So, we only contribute more suffering in the world when we allow the ego unbridled comparison, identification and power-seeking or when we let our egos get competitive, huffy and violent over whose coping mechanisms, behaviors, opinions are best. Judgment and negativity is the primary diagnostic of absolutism - whether it is ubridled praise or criticism. Acceptance (tolerance), enjoyment and enthusism is the primary diagnostic for awareness of the extreme comparative activity of the ego.
Opinion - Recent research has shown that anxiety displacement is counter-balanced by social approval and security through cooperation, sense-of-belonging, and expansion of personal expression. However, this has been overshadowed by anxiety displacement throughout much of history. Its mostly been a competitive social world. We could spend our time much more profitably by recognizing more when our ego's comparative and defensive functions operate and instead look to our fundamental common needs - food, shelter health, education, need for belonging and personal expression. We could look to our common problems and working together to make a difference, rather than defending our egoic coping belief systems or sense of status and worth or defending out-dated cultural systems and pet ideologies.
Ultimately, all human activity is "religiously" or "politically" becomes defensive if it is an activity that provides a sense of mastery of life over death or limitation.
We must be vigilant in the tendency for our human psyche to attach to absolutist concepts or world-views. The unconscious denial of death is the primary motivation for humanity, which Yokum does not take seriously. This irrational motive lies behind science, art, technology, politics, philosophy and culture.
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Summary: An Awakening to Reality
Comment: The idea of the reality of death, and the anxiety caused in our lives by that reality, is nothing new. Read Ernest Becker's 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial of Death for a brilliant analysis of how death motivates all human action. Yalom's practical message, spiced with case studies, provides insigth and instruction for dealing with the prospect and reality of death. Yet, it misses the mark in providing humanity with a wider option that will help not only individuals but the species from overcoming the problems and failures which are directly attributable to the general refusal and inability on the part of cultures, whole civilizations, to deal with the issue of the death anxiety.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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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