Quotes by Psychotherapists

What ultimately got me through was my single-minded determination, voiced aloud to myself and recorded in my diary, to discover the causes of my blindness and never to repeat them. Fearlessly pursuing insight was my badge of honor, my route back to self-respect.
Jeanne Safer
With faith one attains and realises peace and harmony. With doubt one destroys and gains freedom to move ontowards.
Fazal Inayat-Khan
Obsessive love is built on a tissue of illusions: that by having sex with someone you can possess that person's soul; that you can transmute past defeats into present triumphs without understanding or mourning; that you make the unloving love you by constancy, uncomplaining availability, and molding yourself into what you thing that person wants.
Jeanne Safer
He talked about her in a way that only the obsessed do. It was always a pressured monologue, and it was always the same. He had to relate every detail, interpreting and seeking meaning in her every utterance or action, like a fundamentalist minutely analyzing a biblical text.
Jeanne Safer
Some never escape from the imprisoning conviction that a cold or unattainable lover can be persuaded to become warm or attainable if they only discover the key.
Jeanne Safer
Through play, children experience a greater confidence in their bodies, surroundings and themselves. They become familiar with what they can and cannot do.
Iben Dissing Sandahl
Perfectionist parents seem to operate under the illusion that if they can just get their children to be perfect, they will be a perfect family. They put the burden of stability on the child to avoid facing the fact that they, as parents, cannot provide it. The child fails and becomes the scapegoat for family problems. Once again, the child is saddled with the blame.
Susan Forward
The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can be clearly recognized as the sense of incompleteness and unfulfillment and in the uninterrupted struggle both of individuals and of humanity.
Alfred Adler
Remember that everything has God's fingerprints on it.
Richard Carlson
There may be ways in which we can work for change. We don't have to do dramatic things or devote our entire lives to it. We can lead normal lives but at the same time try hard not to be bystanders.
Helen Bamber
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem the more likely one will treat others with respect kindness and generosity. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.
Nathaniel Branden
Few great men could pass personnel.
Paul Goodman
Once a human being has arrived on this earth communication is the largest single factor determining what kinds of relationships he makes with others and what happens to him in the world about him.
Virginia Satir
Today let's give thanks for life. For life itself. For simply being born!
Daphne Rose Kingma
Regression in grief must be seen and supported as a means toward adaptation and health.
Lily Pincus
Few great men could pass personnel.
Paul Goodman
Once a human being has arrived on this earth communication is the largest single factor determining what kinds of relationships he makes with others and what happens to him in the world about him.
Virginia Satir
Today let's give thanks for life. For life itself. For simply being born!
Daphne Rose Kingma
Regression in grief must be seen and supported as a means toward adaptation and health.
Lily Pincus
Spend a moment every day thinking of someone to love.
Richard Carlson
It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.
Alfred Adler
Trust your intuitive heart.
Richard Carlson
Suffering is not a prerequisite for happiness.
Judy Tatelbaum
One of the quickest ways to become exhausted is by suppressing your feelings.
Sue Patton Thoele
Enjoyment is not a goal it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.
Paul Goodman
For the rational psychologically healthy man the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.
Nathaniel Branden
Few great men could pass Personnel.
Paul Goodman
I have learned to have very modest goals for society and myself things like clean air green grass children with bright eyes not being pushed around useful work that suits one's abilities plain tasty food and occasional satisfying nookie.
Paul Goodman
The family is the American fascism.
Paul Goodman
Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long intricate intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.
Amy Bloom
It is by losing himself in the objective in inquiry creation and craft that a man becomes something.
Paul Goodman
Every day tell at least one person something you like admire or appreciate about them.
Richard Carlson
Life happens at the level of events not words.
Alfred Adler
Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events not of words. Trust movement.
Alfred Adler
The essence of diversity is the individual's experience of it. Diversity is about personalised shades of experience emanating from universal colours of humanity, but each person takes from the universal what is relevant to them and alters it by their own interpersonal experience.
Camila Batmanghelidjh
Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self preservation? (CIA Document, Project ARTICHOKE, MORI ID 144686, 1952)As cited by Dr Ellen P. Lacter, p57
Orit Badouk Epstein
As a child you received messages from your family to keep your mouth shut and remain invisible. You also learned to become invisible in order to protect yourself. You no longer need to be invisible to survive. If people do not notice you, they may not abuse you, but they also will not love you or attend to your needs. Make yourself and your needs known.
Beverly Engel
When there is abuse by itself it's scary enough. When there is abuse within a religious setting it is so terrifying to people. Look how long its taken the Ryan report of 2009 took till then to talk about ritualistic kinds of abuse children in Ireland went through at the hands of nuns and priests, so nobody can bear it when its linked to religion, but when it's linked to religion that is not mainstream it seems to frighten people more. As if yes, abuse exists, Satanism exists, but you can't have Satanist abuse.
Valerie Sinason
When there is abuse by itself it's scary enough. When there is abuse within a religious setting it is so terrifying to people... nobody can bear it when it's linked to religion, but when it's linked to religion that is not mainstream it seems to frighten people more. As if yes, abuse exists, Satanism exists, but you can't have Satanist abuse.
Valerie Sinason
The Buddha’s criteria for Wise Speech include—in addition to the obvious expectation that speech be truthful— that it be timely, gentle, motivated by kindness, and helpful.
Sylvia Boorstein
The next-to-last sentence that the Buddha is reported to have spoken as he was dying, before his final sentence of encouragement to his community, was “Transient are all conditioned things.
Sylvia Boorstein
Buddha also said that the Dharma, like a bird, needs two wings to fly, and that the wing that balances Wisdom is compassion.
Sylvia Boorstein
Mindfulness, the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience, is at the heart of what the Buddha taught.
Sylvia Boorstein
The Buddha said that there are three times that a person should consider the consequences of any action: before, during, and after. “One should reflect thus,” he said. “‘Is what I am about to do . . .’ or ‘Is what I am currently doing . . .’ or ‘Is what I just did . . . for my own well-being and for the benefit of all others?
Sylvia Boorstein
You can teach a child the importance of pain by your behavior. You can also teach as child the importance of no pain by your behavior.
Milton H. Erickson
It is, of course, necessary to have rules and procedures if we wish to accomplish large and complex tasks, but the question of whether or not it is worth the cost must be perennially re-examined. (117)
Sheldon B. Kopp
Substitute the word gay for straight and she's the exact same pain in the neck kid sister she was before she told us.
Amy Kaufman Burk
The best transactions in families or between friends occur on the fly. They come as stochastic shocks, or serendipities. People often step out onto our path as we are hurrying to a meeting or intent on finishing a project, and it usually turns out that the meeting or the project was inconsequential compared to the chance to get closer to someone we cared for.
Alan Loy McGinnis
Where tradition tells us that people are best kept under control and denied freedom of expression and action, humanistic psychology argues for liberation, more open decision-making and a sharing of power and control.
Keith Tudor
We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.
Virginia Satir
The paradox of real love is that our capacity to sustain intimacy rests on our capacity to tolerate aloneness inside the relationship.
Terrence Real
As women shut down their needs, they also shut down their sense of pleasure.
Terrence Real
Denial is the lid on our emotional pressure cooker: the longer we leave it on, the more pressure we build up. Sooner or later, that pressure is bound to pop the lid, and we have an emotional crisis.
Susan Forward
Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33TAT: I see the agenda. But let's go back: one of the contentions the therapeutic community has about the Foundation's professed scientific credibility is your use of the term "syndrome." It seems to us that what's happening here is that based solely on anecdotal, unverified reports, the Foundation has started a public relations campaign rather than a bonafide research effort and simply announced to the world that an epidemic of this syndrome exists. The established scientific and clinical organizations are taking you on about this and it's that kind of thing that makes us feel like this effort is not really based on science. Do you have a response to that?Freyd: The response I would make regarding the name of the Foundation is that it will certainly be one of the issues brought up during our scientific meeting this weekend. But let me add that the term, "syndrome," in terms of it being a psychological syndrome, parallels, say, the rape trauma syndrome. Given that and the fact that there are seldom complaints over the use of the term "syndrome" for that, I think that it isn't "syndrome" that's bothering people as much as the term "false."TAT: No. Frankly it's not. It is the term "syndrome." The term false memory is almost 100 years old. It's nothing new, but false memory syndrome is newly coined. Here's our issue with your use of the word "syndrome." The rape trauma syndrome is a good example because it has a very well defined list of signs and symptoms. Having read your literature, we are still at a loss to know what the signs and symptoms of "false memory syndrome" are. Can you tell us succinctly?Freyd: The person with whom I would like to have you discuss that to quote is Dr. Paul McHugh on our advisory board, because he is a clinician.TAT: I would be happy to do that. But if I may, let me take you on a little bit further about this.Freyd: Sure, sure that's fair.TAT: You're the Executive Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - a foundation that says it wants to disseminate scientific information to the community regarding this syndrome but you can't, or won't, give me its signs and symptoms. That is confusing to me. I don't understand why there isn't a list.
David L. Calof
Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33While Pamela Freyd was speaking to us on the record about her organization, another development was in the making in the Freyd family. Since Pamela and her husband, Peter Freyd, started the Foundation and its massive public relations effort in which they present as a "falsely accused" couple, their daughter, Jennifer Freyd, Ph.D., remained publicly silent regarding her parents' claims and the activities of the FMS Foundation. She only wished to preserve her privacy. But, as the Foundation's publicity efforts gained a national foothold, Dr. Jennifer Freyd decided that her continued anonymity amounted to complicity. She began to feel that her silence was beginning to have unwitting effects. She saw that she was giving the appearance of agreeing with her parents' public claims and decided she had to speak out.Jennifer Freyd, Ph.D., is a tenured Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. Along with George K. Ganaway, M.D. (a member of the FMS Foundation Scientific Advisory Board), Lawrence R. Klein, Ph.D., and Stephen H. Landman, Ph.D., she was an invited presenter for The Center for Mental Health at Foote Hospital's Continuing Education Conference: Controversies Around Recovered Memories of Incest and Ritualistic Abuse, held on August 7, 1993 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dr. Jennifer Freyd's presentation, "Theoretical and Personal Perspectives on the Delayed Memory Debate," included professional remarks on the conference topic, along with a personal section in which she, for the first time, publicly gave her side of the Freyd family story.In her statement, she alleges a pattern of boundary and privacy violations by her parents, some of which have occurred under the auspices of the Foundation; a pattern of inappropriate and unwanted sexualization by her father and denial by her mother, and a pattern of intimidation and manipulation by her parents since the inception of the Foundation. She also recounts that several members of the original FMS Foundation Scientific Advisory Board had dual professional relationships with the Freyd family.
David L. Calof
You're the Executive Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - a foundation that says it wants to disseminate scientific information to the community regarding this syndrome but you can't, or won't, give me its signs and symptoms. That is confusing to me. I don't understand why there isn't a list."A Conversation With Pamela Freyd, Ph.D. Co-Founder And Executive Director, False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Inc., Part I, Treating Abuse Today, Vol. III, No. 3.
David L. Calof
Why Is It So Important to Remember?When you were abused, those around you acted as if it weren’t happening. Since no one else acknowledged the abuse, you sometimes felt that it wasn’t real. Because of this you felt confused. You couldn’t trust your own experience and perceptions. Moreover, others’ denial led you to suppress your memories, thus further obscuring the issue.You can end your own denial by remembering. Allowing yourself to remember is a way of confirming in your own mind that you didn’t just imagine it. Because the person who abused you did not acknowledge your pain, you may have also thought that perhaps it wasn’t as bad as you felt it was. In order to acknowledge to yourself that it really was that bad, you need to remember as much detail as possible. Because by denying what happened to you, you are doing to yourself exactly what others have done to you in the past: You are negating and denying yourself.
Beverly Engel
The world shrinks to include only two people, only one of whom -- the beloved -- has power. This inequitable distribution naturally breeds resentment and feelings of hopelessness that the dependent person dare not express for fear of alienating the necessary person even more.
Jeanne Safer
Even though it inspires some of the world's greatest literature, music, and art, obsessive love is one of the most potent and compelling of tortures and one of the most difficult to overcome -- especially because it feels beyond conscious control. Tormented lovers try the patience even of those who truly love them, because they sufferers do not desire help extricating themselves though they claim to be seeking it; this is an illness from which no one wants to be cured.
Jeanne Safer
Anarchy could never get a man to the moon, but it may the only mode that can allow us to survive on earth.
Sheldon B. Kopp