Quotes on Therapy

[Daniel E.]

“I explain to my patients that abused children often find it hard to disentangle themselves from their dysfunctional families, whereas children grow away from good, loving parents with far less conflict. After all, isn't that the task of a good parent, to enable the child to leave home?”

― Irvin Yalom, Momma and the Meaning of Life: Tales of Psychotherapy

 

[Daniel E.]

"You can be broken, or broken open. That choice is yours.”

― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

 

[Daniel E.]

“How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.”

― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

 

[Daniel E.]

 

[Daniel E.]

There’s nothing wrong with a healthy diet, or meditation, or prayer, or anything that you enjoy, anything that gives you a sense of meaning. But these non-specific approaches should not be confused with specific treatments for depression, anxiety disorders, conflicts in relationships with others, or habits and addictions.

~ David Burns blog

 

[David Baxter PhD]

There’s nothing wrong with a healthy diet, or meditation, or prayer, or anything that you enjoy, anything that gives you a sense of meaning. But these non-specific approaches should not be confused with specific treatments for depression, anxiety disorders, conflicts in relationships with others, or habits and addictions.

~ David Burns blog

Absolutely!

 

[forgetmenot]

also from not being heard no matter how hard you try as you are deemed non important.

 

[Daniel E.]

“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.”

"Perfection" is man's ultimate illusion. It simply doesn't exist in the universe. There is no perfection. It's really the world's greatest con game; it promises riches and delivers misery. The harder you strive for perfection, the worse your disappointment will become because it's only an abstraction, a concept that doesn't fit reality. Everything can be improved if you look at it closely and critically enough—every person, every idea, every work of art, every experience, everything. So if you are a perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do.

― David D. Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

 

[Daniel E.]

Marsha Linehan saying being a therapist is sometimes like being a salesperson except the therapist is selling behaviors:

 

[Daniel E.]

"We live in a world where mental illness, challenges in living, and general distress are so stigmatized. I strongly believed in the power of therapy to promote wellness, growth, and give people a nonjudgmental, structured space in which to be able to explore themselves in an uncensored manner."

-- Ramani Durvasula, PhD, Careers in Psychology

 

[Daniel E.]

Source: AlbertEllis.org

 

[Daniel E.]

"If you can live in the grey zone of multiple outcomes, you no longer need to challenge every negative thought."

~ Dr. David Sbarra, Psychology’s power tools | Aeon Essays

 

[Daniel E.]

From a blog post by a therapist (Barry Brody, PhD):

One day, I recall sitting in a lecture and the professor says “Every session has to be minted new, fresh. If you are thinking about what Freud or Adler or Jung would have done, the session is over. You are done. The session is over.” This is what I had been searching for.

In the consulting room….

When the door closes….

It is just me and the patient.

And the experience.

There is no way to prepare. You either have and tolerate the experience or find someway to avoid it.

A good way to avoid the experience is to rely on what I know–theories, techniques, what has been effective with other patients. This way I won’t have to discover anything new.

Of course, the patient also brings their well-developed experience-avoiding skills.

If we are lucky, then perhaps one day, one session either myself or the patient or both of us will be able to stop avoiding and tolerate the experience.

 

[GaryQ]

In my book this guy's approach is awesome and funny

I'm also guessing he probably gets constanltly bashed by old school therapists for daring to think outside the box created by Freud and friends.

 

[Daniel E.]

And in some ways, old school is new again since he is a psychodynamic therapist: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/barry-brody-lake-city-fl/37027

 

[GaryQ]

I'm not knowledgable like you or David but it seems there are more dfferent names, types and kinds of therapy now than I have disorders (and I have a lot)
No smiley = serious thought

 

[Daniel E.]

Different therapeutic approaches may be associated with particular theories about what needs to change in a person for a successful therapeutic outcome. In general, processes of emotional arousal and memory have long been held to play an important role. One theory combining these aspects proposes that permanent change occurs to the extent that the neuropsychological mechanism of memory reconsolidation is triggered and is able to incorporate new emotional experiences.

~ Psychotherapy - Wikipedia

 

[Daniel E.]

"A great deal of depression and anxiety results from the idea that we aren’t good enough, so we beat up on ourselves relentlessly, thinking perhaps that if we punish ourselves enough, we will grow and eventually attain some goal of perfection or superiority. But this mind-set is the problem; it is not the cure. Recovery more often results from what I call the Acceptance Paradox–which means the death of the patient’s ego. That means accepting that you are, and always will be, quite flawed, and accepting this with a sense of inner peace, or even humor."

~ David Burns

 

[Daniel E.]

"Therapy was a kind of mixed atmospheric chamber, where a somewhat healthier atmosphere could be provided in nearly tolerable doses, so that Alice could adapt to it and use it by degrees. She could gradually get used to exercising psychic lungs in alternative atmospheric conditions, so that the contrast between what she was used to, what she wanted, and what she got would not do her in. As years passed, she built more of the kind of life that she could say yes to."

~ Michael Eigen, Toxic Nourishment

 

[Daniel E.]

“It’s incredible to be somewhere where nobody seems to be expecting you to do or say anything.”

~ Josh Cohen