199 Quotes About Psychotherapy

Can a therapist make me not want to get pregnant? Can a therapist undo the trouble with my eggs, my hormones, and whatever else isn't working? I can't help it, but it feels like an insult for the doctor to send me there. Like telling people with cancer they can think themselves healthy if they try hard enough to visualize their immune cells as little sharks gobbling up the tumor. It's just blaming the victim.

Expunction of pain, deviant, or oppositional behaviors does not indicate healing, but it can signify successful conditioning.

The manic relief that comes from the fantasy that we can with one savage slash cut the chains of the past and rise like a phoenix, free of all history, is generally a tipping point into insanity, akin to believing that we can escape the endless constraints of gravity, and fly off a tall building. “I’m freeeee… SPLAT!”.

...some patients resist the diagnosis of a post-traumatic disorder. They may feel stigmatized by any psychiatric diagnosis or wish to deny their condition out of a sense of pride. Some people feel that acknowledging psychological harm grants a moral victory to the perpetrator, in a way that acknowledging physical harm does not.

A surprisingly large number or people try to live the second half of life as if it were the first half. This perverts the normal grace of aging. Hating wrinkles, bemoaning physical deterioration, sexual changes, aches and pains, and illnesses, they hide or deny aging, clown their way through life, playing perennial youths, seeking the thrills and action of being young. They are robbing themselves of the treasures of growing old which compensate for its frailties and infirmities.

Respect your needs and limitations as you work through your grief and begin to heal

The shame, embarrassment, feeling of low self-worth, and scores of "labels" we give ourselves are not fitting. I am beginning to see how I had no control over the situation. He was a big man, I was a little boy.

It wasn't a sign of weakness to tell what happened to me. I feel guilt no longer, only regret. The other emotions are coming around too. How much further do I need to go? I'm not sure, but there is comfort in the fact that I am in the hands of expert guides, both in the doctor's office and at home with Sue.

There is no external solution to the problem of insecurity.