In essence, we gain self-respect through discipline and closeness to others through love. Discipline must always have within it the element of love. "I care enough about you to force you to act in a better way, in a way you will learn through experience to know, and I already know, is the right way." Similarly, love must always have an element of discipline. "I love you because you are a worthwhile person, because I respect you and feel you respect me as well as yourself.

[P]atients, no matter what their psychiatric complaint, suffer from a universal defect: they are unable to fulfill their needs in a realistic way and have taken some less realistic way in their unsuccessful attempts to do so.

Therapy is a special kind of teaching or training which attempts to accomplish in a relatively short, intense period what should have established during normal growing up.

Caring for but never trying to own may be a further way to define friendship.