Mental Life Quotes

Mary was my first encounter with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which at that time was called multiple personality disorder. As dramatic as its symptoms are, the internal splitting and emergence of distinct identities experienced in DID represent only the extreme end of the spectrum of mental life.

Bessel A. van der Kolk

Fantasies and wishes carry their own significant messages.

If you could have sufficient insight into all the inner and outer parts of your mental life, along with remembrance and intelligence enough to consider all the circumstances and take them into account, you would be a true prophet and visualize the future in the present as in a mirror.

One way or another we are all biased, but still we have the modern cortical capacity to choose whether or not to let the harmful biases dictate our behavior.

The human brain always concocts biases to aid in the construction of a coherent mental life, exclusively suitable for an individual’s personal needs.