Edith Eva Eger quotes
1927 – · Hungary / United States, 20th–21st century · clinical psychologist and author
About Edith Eva Eger
Born 29 September 1927 in Košice (then Czechoslovakia), Edith Eger survived Auschwitz and other camps, emigrated to the United States in 1949 and trained as a clinical psychologist. She combined testimony and therapy in her books and teaching; she died in San Diego on 27 April 2026.
Works: The Choice: Embrace the Possible (2017); The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life (2020)
Quotes
“The opposite of depression is expression. What comes out of you doesn’t make you sick; what stays in there does.”
Source: The Gift: 14 Lessons to Save Your Life, chapter "No Prozac at Auschwitz" (2020) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording appears in Edith Eva Eger’s The Gift, in the chapter “No Prozac at Auschwitz,” where she frames it as part of her approach.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is verified; minor textual variants appear across interviews and some editions (e.g., us/you, ill/sick).
Eger’s line stakes a therapeutic claim: hiding painful feelings doesn’t erase them—unprocessed emotions can fester inside. She presents expression as a healing practice in The Gift, not a clinical definition of depression.