Therapy Quotes

“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.”
― David Richo

“I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine - I'm here."
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"Absolutely.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”
― Graham Greene, Ways of Escape

“Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.”
― Gabor Maté

“In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
― Carl R. Rogers

“Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“All children should be taught to unconditionally accept, approve, admire, appreciate, forgive, trust, and ultimately, love their own person.”
― Asa Don Brown

“Some seek the comfort of their therapist's office, other head to the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I chose running as my therapy.”
― Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition—that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are—even if we tell it only to ourselves—because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about.”
― Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

“Everyone may agree upon the diagnosis, but not everyone may consent to the therapy. Indeed, for healing, things have to be sacrificed at times and separation or loss might always be heartbreak and leave scars of remorse or regret. ( “Sorrow” )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“The moment you have to recruit people to put another person down, in order to convince someone of your value is the day you dishonor your children, your parents and your God. If someone doesn't see your worth the problem is them, not people outside your relationship.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“In Hollywood if you don't have a shrink, people think you're crazy.”
― Johnny Carson

“It's difficult. I take a low dose of lithium nightly. I take an antidepressant for my darkness because prayer isn't enough. My therapist hears confession twice a month, my shrink delivers the host, and I can stand in the woods and see the world spark.”
― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family

“We do not have to be mental health professionals to identify the traits of the possible sociopaths among us.”
― P.A. Speers, Type 1 Sociopath - When Difficult People Are More Than Just Difficult People

“Of course, a culture as manically and massively materialistic as ours creates materialistic behavior in its people, especially in those people who've been subjected to nothing but the destruction of imagination that this culture calls education, the destruction of autonomy it calls work, and the destruction of activity it calls entertainment.”
― James Hillman, We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy & the World's Getting Worse

“First, the physiological symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder have been brought within manageable limits. Second, the person is able to bear the feelings associated with traumatic memories. Third, the person has authority over her memories; she can elect both to remember the trauma and to put memory aside. Fourth, the memory of the traumatic event is a coherent narrative, linked with feeling. Fifth, the person's damaged self-esteem has been restored. Sixth, the person's important relationships have been reestablished. Seventh and finally, the person has reconstructed a coherent system of meaning and belief that encompasses the story of trauma.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Talking to a therapist, I thought, was like taking your clothes off and then taking your skin off, and then having the other person say," Would you mind opening up your rib cage so that we can start?”
― Julie Schumacher, Black Box

“After a while Mary said, “Zsadist?”

“Yeah?”

“What are those markings?”

His frowned and flicked his eyes over to her, thinking, as if she didn’t know? But then... well, she had been a human. Maybe she didn’t. “They’re slave bands. I was... a slave.”

“Did it hurt when they were put on you?”

“Yes.”

“Did the same person who cut your face give them to you?”

“No, my owner’shellrendid that. My owner... she put the bands on me. He was the one who cut my face.”

“How long were you a slave?”

“A hundred years.”

“How did you get free?”

“Phury. Phury got me out. That’s how he lost his leg.”

“Were you hurt while you were a slave?”

Z swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Do you still think about it?”

“Yes.” He looked down at his hands, which suddenly were in pain for some reason. Oh, right. He’d made two
fists and was squeezing them so tightly his fingers were about to snap off at the knuckles.

“Does slavery still happen?”

“No. Wrath outlawed it. As a mating gift to me and Bella.”

“What kind of slave were you?”

Zsadist shut his eyes. Ah, yes, the question he didn’t want to answer. For a while it was all he could do to force himself to stay in the chair. But then, in a falsely level voice, he said,
“I was a blood slave. I was used by a female for blood.”

The quiet after he spoke bore down on him, a tangible weight.

“Zsadist? Can I put my hand on your back?”

His head did something that was evidently a nod, because Mary’s gentle palm came down lightly on his
shoulder blade. She moved it in a slow, easy circle.

“Those are the right answers,” she said. “All of them.”

He had to blink fast as the fire in the furnace’s window became blurry. “You think?” he said hoarsely.

“No. I know.”
― J.R. Ward, Father Mine

“There's no weakness as great as false strength.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“I've realized therapy is incredibly therapeutic.”
― Lisa Schroeder, I Heart You, You Haunt Me

“The cases described in this section (The Fear of Being) may seem extreme, but I have become convinced that they are not as uncommon as one would think. Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity into doubt. We are like the inmates of a mental institution who must accept its inhumanity and insensitivity as caring and knowledgeableness if they hope to be regarded as sane enough to leave. The question who is sane and who is crazy was the theme of the novelOne Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.The question, what is sanity? was clearly asked in the playEquus.
The idea that much of what we do is insane and that if we want to be sane, we must let ourselves go crazy has been strongly advanced byR.D. Laing.In the preface to the Pelican edition of his bookThe Divided Self,Laing writes: "In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all of our frames of reference are ambiguous and equivocal." And in the same preface: "Thus I would wish to emphasize that our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities; that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities."
Wilhelm Reichhad a somewhat similar view of present-day human behavior. Thus Reich says, "Homo normalis blocks off entirely the perception of basic orgonotic functioning by means of rigid armoring; in the schizophrenic, on the other hand, the armoring practically breaks down and thus the biosystem is flooded with deep experiences from the biophysical core with which it cannot cope." The "deep experiences" to which Reich refers are the pleasurable streaming sensations associated with intense excitation that is mainly sexual in nature. The schizophrenic cannot cope with these sensations because his body is too contracted to tolerate the charge. Unable to "block" the excitation or reduce it as a neurotic can, and unable to "stand" the charge, the schizophrenic is literally "driven crazy."
But the neurotic does not escape so easily either. He avoids insanity by blocking the excitation, that is, by reducing it to a point where there is no danger of explosion, or bursting. In effect the neurotic undergoes a psychological castration. However, the potential for explosive release is still present in his body, although it is rigidly guarded as if it were a bomb. The neurotic is on guard against himself, terrified to let go of his defenses and allow his feelings free expression. Having become, as Reich calls him, "homo normalis," having bartered his freedom and ecstasy for the security of being "well adjusted," he sees the alternative as "crazy." And in a sense he is right. Without going "crazy," without becoming "mad," so mad that he could kill, it is impossible to give up the defenses that protect him in the same way that a mental institution protects its inmates from self-destruction and the destruction of others.”
― Alexander Lowen, Fear Of Life

“No event is depressing. I may feel depressed; if so, I take responsibility.”
― Larry Godwin, Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass

“[Children] just cannot be sad too long, it is not in them, as children mourn in little bits here and there like patchwork in their lives.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901

“Today I hit rock bottom but didn’t busy myself with activity to take my mind off it, like I usually do. I allowed myself to sink as deep as possible. It’s like an infection: let it run its course and be done with it. Rising, I felt cleansed.”
― Larry Godwin, Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass

“I have an obligation to help eliminate the stigma attached to mental illness. When I’m feeling despondent and someone asks in a sincere way how I am, I have a duty to tell the truth. It’s no different from saying I have a bad cold. By speaking candidly, I give others permission to acknowledge their own mental illness, talk about it, and seek help. I must break the silence instead of treating my depression like a shameful character flaw.”
― Larry Godwin, Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass

“I feel like a violet standing alone in a vast meadow. When a cool, gentle breeze blows, I feel peaceful. If the wind turns strong and hot from the south, I plot suicide.”
― Larry Godwin, Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass

“My therapist opens my wounds a little deeper, then picks at the scabs.”
― Larry Godwin, Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass

“By masking my mental illness, I get along with almost everyone. Although the odd duck, I honor society’s rules. No one else could imagine my mind’s interior.”
― Larry Godwin, Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass