Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

Irvin D. Yalom was born on in 1931 in Washington, D.C., to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Belarus approximately fifteen years before his birth. His family operated a grocery store and Yalom spent his childhood living in a small apartment above the store. With limited guidance from parents who were entirely consumed in the struggle for economic survival and had virtually no secular education, Yalom found refuge in the local library and developed an early passion for reading, particularly fiction.

Yalom completed his undergraduate education at George Washington University, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1952, followed by his Doctor of Medicine from Boston University School of Medicine in 1956. He completed his internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City in 1957 and his residency at Johns Hopkins University’s Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore, Maryland, where his mentor Jerome Frank introduced him to group therapy by inviting him to observe sessions. The influence of Rollo May’s Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology (1958) led Yalom to take philosophy classes to enhance his psychotherapy approaches.

After two years of Army service at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu, Yalom began his academic career at Stanford University in 1962.