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The cover of Staring at the Sun

Staring at the Sun

Irvin D. Yalom, 2008

Yalom, a psychotherapist, shows how facing death changes how you live: the fears we disguise, the ideas that steady us, and why connection matters more than argument.

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8 parts, about 22 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • A psychiatrist argues that fear of death drives much unexplained anxiety, and that facing it squarely can awaken a fuller life
  • Offers usable tools against that fear: ancient arguments about nonexistence, the idea of rippling influence, and a test of an unlived life
  • Draws on real therapy sessions and the author's own aging, showing that ideas help only inside a genuine human connection

Who it is for

  • People troubled by fear of death or aging
  • Therapists and counselors who work with grief or dying
  • Readers drawn to philosophy as practical comfort

What the summary covers

  1. The Wound of Mortality2 min
  2. Recognizing Death Anxiety3 min
  3. The Awakening Experience3 min
  4. The Power of Ideas3 min
  5. Why Ideas Need Connection3 min
  6. My Own Story2 min
  7. Advice for Therapists4 min
  8. A Full Look at Death2 min

Recommended by

  • Andrew SolomonAuthor of The Noonday Demon, National Book Award winner
    Staring at the Sun looks experientially and psychodynamically at our deepest fear and describes with uncommon eloquence and deep humanity how we may arrive at a form of peace. The book is witty and kind and unflinching, a generous meditation that should give comfort to the dying and to those they leave behind.
  • Harold KushnerRabbi, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
    One of America's finest therapists guides us through one of life's most challenging tasks in this profoundly helpful book. It will benefit anyone who reads it.
  • Christopher HitchensAuthor of God Is Not Great
    Staring at the Sun is a thoughtful reinforcement of the stoicism that we all need in a time when babble and denial are all the rage.
  • Erica JongAuthor of Fear of Flying
    Irvin Yalom has written a brave, intelligent book on the last forbidden subject—death. I honor his courage and rare insight.
  • George VaillantAuthor of Aging Well, Harvard adult development study director
    Irv Yalom has written a beautiful and courageous book—a book that comforts even as it explores and confronts death. Yalom helps us understand that we must all come to grips with a paradox: The physicality of death destroys us; the idea of death saves us.
  • Harold RamisActor, writer and director of Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day
    In Staring at the Sun, Dr. Yalom shares with us the problems of his patients linked to their mortality, his compassionate, healing insight into their death anxiety, and perhaps most movingly, his own feelings and personal experiences with death.

About the author

  • Irvin D. YalomEmeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and author
    • Born in Washington, D.C., to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Belarus
    • BA from George Washington University in 1952 and MD from Boston University School of Medicine in 1956
    • Residency at the Phipps Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital, training completed in 1960
    • Appointed to the Stanford faculty in 1963 and granted tenure in 1968
    • His existential psychology centers on four givens: isolation, meaninglessness, mortality and freedom; mortality is this book's subject

Read it alongside

  • Puts it into practiceBeing Mortal

    Irvin Yalom says guided confrontation with death can make life more vital; Atul Gawande turns that guidance into questions about a patient's fears and goals.

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