Therapy Quotes

“The role of the therapist is to reflect the being/accepting self that was never allowed to be in the borderline.”
― Michael Adzema

“There are many ways of getting strong, sometimes talking is the best way.”
― Andre Agassi, Open

“You can’t selectively numb your anger, any more than you can turn off all lights in a room, and still expect to see the light.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“A combination of fine tea, enchanting objects and soothing surroundings exerts a therapeutic effect by washing away the corrosive strains and stress of modern life. [... It] induces a mood that is spiritually refreshing [and produces] a genial state of mind.”
― John Blofeld, The Chinese Art of Tea

“It is fear that makes you believe that you are living and that you will be dead.What we do not want is the fear to come to an end. That is why we have invented all these new minds, new sciences,new talks, therapies, choiceless awareness and various other gimmicks.”
― U.G. Krishnamurti

“All Hellenistic schools seem to define [wisdom] in approximately the same terms: first and foremost, as a state of perfect peace of mind. From this viewpoint, philosophy appears as a remedy for human worries, anguish, and misery brought about, for the Cynics, by social constraints and conventions; for the Epicureans, by the quest for false pleasures; for the Stoics, by the pursuit of pleasure and egoistic self-interest; and for the Skeptics, by false opinions. Whether or not they laid claim to the Socratic heritage, all Hellenistic philosophers agreed with Socrates that human beings are plunged in misery, anguish, and evil because they exist in ignorance. Evil is to be found not within things, but in the value judgments with people bring to bearuponthings. People can therefore be cured of their ills only if they are persuaded to change their value judgments, and in this sense all these philosophies wanted to be therapeutic.”
― Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?

“Dr. Talbon was struck by another very important thing. It all hung together. The stories Cheryl told — even though it was upsetting to think people could do stuff like that — they were not disjointed They were not repetitive in terms of" I've heard this before ". It was not just she'd someone trying consciously or unconsciously to get attention. really processed them out and was done with them. She didn't come up with them again [after telling the story once and dealing with it]. Once it was done, it was done. And I think that was probably the biggest factor for me in her believability. I got no sense that she was using these stories to make herself a really interesting person to me so I'd really want to work with her, or something. Or that she was just living in this stuff like it was her life. Once she dealt with it and processed it, it was gone. We just went on to other things. 'Throughout the whole thing, emotionally Cheryl was getting her life together. Parts of her were integrating where she could say," I have a sense that some particular alter has folded in with some basic alter ", and she didn't bring it up again. She didn't say that this alter has reappeared to cause more problems. That just didn't happen. The therapist had learned from training and experience that when real integration occurs, it is permanent and the patient moves on.”
― Cheryl Hersha, Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country

“When people recover from depression via psychotherapy, their attributions about recovery are likely to be different than those of people who have been treated with medication. Psychotherapy is a learning experience. Improvement is not produced by an external substance, but by changes within the person. It is like learning to read, write or ride a bicycle. Once you have learned, the skills stays with you. People no not become illiterate after they graduate from school, and if they get rusty at riding a bicycle, the skill can be acquired with relatively little practice. Furthermore, part of what a person might learn in therapy is to expect downturns in mood and to interpret them as a normal part of their life, rather than as an indication of an underlying disorder. This understanding, along with the skills that the person has learned for coping with negative moods and situations, can help to prevent a depressive relapse.”
― Irving Kirsch, The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth

“I hear they make greeting cards now
to thank your therapist... for NOTHING”
― Casey Renee Kiser, Swan Wreck

“The" stiff, dead, retracted pelvis "is one of man's most frequent vegetative disturbances. It is responsible for lumbago as well as for hemorrhoidal disturbances. Elsewhere, we shall demonstrate an important connection between these disturbances and genital cancer in women, which is so common.
Thus, the "deadning of the pelvis" has the same function as the deadening of the abdomen, i.e., to avoid feelings, particularly those of pleasure and anxiety.”
― Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm

“So are you an inmate or a rubbernecker?" she asks.

"Rubbernecker," I answer without hesitation. "You?"

"I'm a screw. Or on staff, anyway. Used to be an inmate. Repeat offender. Crimes against my body. Puking sickness followed by heroin, which led to more puking sickness." I'd be surprised at her forthrightness, but that's addicts for you. The twelve steps crack 'em open and then they can't shut up.”
― Lauren Beukes, Zoo City

“A comedian is simply a different kind of therapist. A comedian is a psychologist and a psychiatrist rolled into one. Except I can't prescribe medicine. (You still need a doctorate, which is bullshit.) Okay, so I'm not like a psychiatrist. Fine. But I'm still like a psychologist (except I can't diagnose or treat mental illness).”
― Eugene Mirman, The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life

“Debriefing-style counseling after a trauma often aggravates a victim's stress-related symptoms, for example, and 4 in 10 bereaved people do better without grief therapy.”
― Winifred Gallagher

“I thought part of the idea of having therapy was putting one in touch with his or her feelings. And don’t give me all that about transference, and counter-transference and all that. I know what I feel. And it has nothing to do with all that. And you also feel for me. And if you don’t know that, then maybe it’s you who needs to have therapy to gain a better knowledge of yourself.”
― Olga Núñez Miret, Teamwork

“The air hangs thick with awkward static, like it usually does around the endless parade of therapists, social workers, and grief counselors. Does anyone feel comfortable in these tableaux of forced intimacy where you're meant to shine a light in your darkest corners for someone who is supposed to be nonjudgmental? As if there is such an animal”
― Jillian Lauren, Pretty

“Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man.”
― Louis Nizer

“I lost my circadian rhythm during extreme night shift work and I restored it by using continuous light therapy. I was waking up at sunrise with the birds, no alarm clock needed.”
― Steven Magee

“One thing therapy has taught me is that we all handle things differently. Two people can be at the same place at the same time and have two entirely different experiences.”
― A.E. Valdez, Colliding With Fate

“I called every therapist my insurance claimed was accepting clients, most of whom were not—a few specialized only in children. One told me she only spoke to dying people and did not think it clever to retort we were all terminal cases.”
― Valentine Glass, Jarring Sex

“Sometimes the best thing anyone can do for someone else is just… listen.”
― Ivy Fox, Penalty to the Heart

“Writing has always been my sanctuary. It's my escape from the chaos, a safe place where I can process my thoughts and feelings and emotions. For me, it's therapeutic and vital for managing anxiety and PTSD.”
― Niedria D. Kenny

“There's something incredibly healing about pouring your soul onto paper. Writing helps me untangle my mind and find clarity amidst anxiety and PTSD. It's my go to therapy.”
― Niedria D. Kenny

“The most gifted healers are those who are continually and actively doing their own inner work behind the scenes.”
― Laurie E. Smith

“Someone's therapist knows all about you.”
― Dominic Riccitello

“One hug does more to wipe tears than a hundred hours of therapy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Since then neuroscience research has shown that we possess two distinct forms of self-awareness: one that keeps track of the self across time and one that registers the self in the present moment. The first, our autobiographical self, creates connections among experiences and assembles them into a coherent story. This system is rooted in language. Our narratives change with the telling, as our perspective changes and as we incorporate new input.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in The Healing of Trauma

“Such changes are called" switching "in clinical practice, and we see them often in individuals with trauma histories. Patients activate distinctly different emotional and physiological states as they move from one topic to another. Switching manifests not only as remarkably different vocal patterns but also in different facial expressions and body movements. Some patients even appear to change their personal identity, from timid to forceful and aggressive or from anxiously compliant to starkly seductive. When they write about their deepest fears, their handwriting often becomes more childlike and primitive”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in The Healing of Trauma

“If, as a therapist, teacher, or mentor, you try to fill the holes of early deprivation, you come up against the fact that you are the wrong person, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in The Healing of Trauma

“Of all the things that send women to therapy, I bet the main one is a sense of being invisible to themselves.”
― Annie de Monchaux, Audrey's Gone AWOL

“Therapy, in every language, means 'to take out the shit', 'to eat excrement', to harvest putrefaction'.”
― Giovanna Rivero, Tierra fresca de su tumba