338 Quotes by M. Scott Peck

It has been further suggested that the absence of love is the major cause of mental illness and that the presence of love is consequently the essential healing element in psychotherapy. This.

Neurotics, because of their willingness to assume responsibility, may be quite excellent parents if their neuroses are relatively mild and they are not so overwhelmed by unnecessary responsibilities that they have scant energy left for the necessary responsibilities of parenthood.

Efficiency involves attentiveness to those things that must be dealt with before they become such overwhelming problems that they cause far more damage than necessary.

The reason for this is that the problem of distinguishing what we are and what we are not responsible for in this life is one of the greatest problems of human existence.

Most people who come to see a psychiatrist are suffering from what is called either a neurosis or a character disorder... When neurotics are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that they are at fault. When those with character disorders are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that the world is at fault.

It may sound strange to laymen, but psychotherapists are familiar with the fact that people are routinely terrified by mental health.

But while all fear is not laziness, much fear is exactly that. Much of our fear is fear of a change in the status quo, a fear that we might lose what we have if we venture forth from where we are now. In the section on discipline I spoke of the fact.

Most of us operate from a narrower frame of reference than that of which we are capable, failing to transcend the influence of our particular culture, our particular set of parents and our particular childhood experience upon our understanding.

They will observe how their children eat cake, how they study, when they tell subtle falsehoods, when they run away from problems rather than face them. They will take the time to make these minor corrections and adjustments, listening to their children, responding to them, tightening a little here, loosening a little there, giving them little lectures, little stories, little hugs and kisses, little admonishments, little pats on the back.