Quotes on Therapy

[Daniel E.]

"Stress has become an epidemic, and many times people simply need tools and strategies to make it through their long lists and the challenges they experience in the day to day--and also when they are hit with major blows such as loss, trauma and illness. I also love helping those I serve to build off their strengths--the mental health field has come a long way in recognizing that it's not just about diagnosing or looking at "what's wrong", but also looking at what is working well and how we can build off of that. We are much more resourceful and resilient than we usually realize.”

- Kristen Lee Costa, MSW, EdD

23 Mental Health Professionals Interviewed About Their Jobs

 

[Daniel E.]

“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person."

“After all, this is how you learned how to walk. You didn't just jump up from your crib one day and waltz gracefully across the room. You stumbled and fell on your face and got up and tried again. At what age are you suddenly expected to know everything and never make any more mistakes? If you can love and respect yourself in failure, worlds of adventure and new experiences will open up before you, and your fears will vanish.”

"Labeling yourself is not only self-defeating, it is irrational. Your self cannot be equated with any one thing you do. Your life is a complex and ever-changing flow of thoughts, emotions, and actions. To put it another way, you are more like a river than a statue. Stop trying to define yourself with negative labels."

― David D. Burns

 

[Daniel E.]

“Just because somebody is open about their illness in the past doesn’t mean that they’re going to be as open about what’s happening in their present."

- Chris Cuomo

 

[Daniel E.]

"If it were up to me, our health systems would allow three or four appointments with a mental health provider every year, no questions asked, no need for a specific diagnosis."

-- Dr. Lynn Bufka, American Psychological Association

Why Is Therapy So Expensive?

 

[Daniel E.]

 

[Daniel E.]

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.

- Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

 

[GaryQ]

"If it were up to me, our health systems would allow three or four appointments with a mental health provider every year, no questions asked, no need for a specific diagnosis."

-- Dr. Lynn Bufka, American Psychological Association

I agree with the premise of that idea. Just have problems with the source.
self promotion loses all it possible potential credibility as far as I’m concerned.

if it were up to me all mental health providers would offer so many free consultations every year to those in financial difficulty. Wonder how she would respond to my quote?

 

[Daniel E.]

While many psychotherapists do offer pro bono services at different points of their career, no other health profession is as expected to offer free or sliding scale services. (The average PsyD in the U.S. graduates with about $200,000 in debt.)

OTOH, it can be mutually beneficial:

Building a Practice: Pro Bono Work Matters | Psych Central Professional

 

[Daniel E.]

"In this population and context, data suggest that crisis-service utilization conveys risk for suicide. DBT may reduce suicide risk in part by reducing use of these services."

On the potential for iatrogenic effects of psychiatric crisis services: The example of dialectical behavior therapy for adult women with borderline personality disorder.

 

[Daniel E.]

"Often, service users describe finding help in spite of, rather than because of, standard mental health services, and plead for trauma-informed collaborative, relationship-focused, client-directed, non-medical approaches that honor the subjective experience and frame atypical experiences as adaptive coping tools for an overwhelming and most often traumatic environment."

- Noël Hunter, Finding Help

 

[Daniel E.]

"The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950’s."

- Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D., How Big a Problem Is Anxiety?

 

[GaryQ]

That's actually quite sad to read

 

[Daniel E.]

"If we stop seeing depression simply as a psychological burden, which just needs to be removed through therapy, we might also be able to use the patient's crisis as an opportunity for personal development."

- Katharina Koppe

Easier to let go -- can depression help people deal with life? | EurekAlert! Science News

 

[Daniel E.]

"There are some underreported, outstanding studies on long-term psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy that have impressive results. One of them is the Tavistock Adult Depression Study (TADS). In this study of chronically-depressed patients it was discovered that 44 percent of those receiving 18 months of weekly psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy at the two-year follow up had fully recovered, compared with 10 percent who had received treatment as usual (medications and/or short-term CBT treatments)."

- Enrico Gnaulati

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-therapy/201802/is-evidence-based-base

 

[David Baxter PhD]

"There are some underreported, outstanding studies on long-term psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy that have impressive results. One of them is the Tavistock Adult Depression Study (TADS). In this study of chronically-depressed patients it was discovered that 44 percent of those receiving 18 months of weekly psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy at the two-year follow up had fully recovered, compared with 10 percent who had received treatment as usual (medications and/or short-term CBT treatments)."

- Enrico Gnaulati

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-therapy/201802/is-evidence-based-base

Of course, it may be that the length of psychotherapy has more impact on outcomes than the type of psychotherapy. A few weeks of CBT (e.g., the recommended first line treatment in the UK lately) cannot and should not be expected to resolve all of the factors in anyone's life that contribute to depression - or any other presenting problem. It will provide some help and it is cost-effective but we need to be realistic about expected outcomes.

 

[Daniel E.]

"If you practice willingness, acceptance, and love, you too will be transformed."

- Marsha Linehan

 

[Daniel E.]

"We should not try to 'get rid' of a neurosis, but rather to experience what it means, what it has to teach, what its purpose is. We should even learn to be thankful for it, otherwise we pass it by and miss the opportunity of getting to know ourselves as we really are."

- Carl Jung

 

[Daniel E.]

"As our understanding of depression begins to move beyond individual-level factors to include social and cultural value systems, we need to question whether cultural values are making us happy. We are not immune to these values and our cultures are sometimes responsible for our mental health. This is not to reduce individual-level agency, but to take seriously the growing body of evidence that much of what we do is often decided outside of conscious awareness."

- Brock Bastian

So many in the West are depressed because they're expected not to be

 

[Daniel E.]

 

[Daniel E.]