staring at the sun

Overcoming the fear of death

Author's Name: Irvin Yalom

Dar Al Rawafed Cultural and Ibn al-Nadim in Beirut is publishing a book titled "Sun Gazing... Overcoming the Terror of Death," by the renowned American writer and psychiatrist Irvin Yalom, with a customary translation by Khaled Al-Jubaili. Irvin Yalom is an American psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. He is a staunch supporter of existential psychology, and has a distinct doctrine that blends philosophy with psychotherapy. He was born in 1931 in Washington, D.C., to a Polish-Jewish family living in Russia. His parents immigrated to the United States during World War I, settling there. Irvin grew up and studied at George Washington University. He earned a doctorate in medicine from Boston University, and completed his basic training in 1960 at several hospitals in New York and Baltimore. He was then appointed a professor of medicine at Stanford University in 1963, where he continues to teach. In his writings on existential psychology, he focuses on what he calls the four "givens" of the human condition: death, isolation, meaninglessness, and freedom. He considers these to be absolute concerns with which humans interact throughout their lives, developing various mechanisms for this interaction. In addition to these scientific writings, he has made valuable contributions to the field of literature and documentary film production. He has published numerous novels and stories that revolve around the psychological aspects of humans, and has produced several documentaries on psychotherapeutic techniques. He founded the Irvin D. Yalom Institute of Psychotherapy to promote his therapeutic approach, which blends philosophy with psychotherapy. He has received numerous awards, most notably the Sigmund Freud International Prize for Psychotherapy from the International Council for Psychotherapy in 2009. He has published numerous psychological and literary books, including his most notable novels: "When Nietzsche Wept," "Schopenhauer's Antidote," and "The Spinoza Problem." His most important books include: “Existential Psychotherapy,” “The Gift of Therapy,” and “Being Myself: Memoirs of a Psychiatrist.”