"One of the major blocks to happiness is a sense of isolation. If you're alive, you need help."
~ Robert Holden, PhD
~ Robert Holden, PhD
Hey Dr. Phil: Can We Talk? | Psychology Today
by David Bedrick J.D., Dipl. PW, author of Talking Back to Dr. Phil
...Much of “mainstream psychology” treats the difficulties of individuals in a vacuum, maintaining boundaries between social action and psychological intervention. Sexism, homophobia, classism, ethnocentrism, racism, and other forms of social bias play an integral role in the suffering people experience. Women’s feelings about their bodies, black youths’ success in the public education system, gay youths’ experiences of prejudice or suicidal tendencies, and men’s freedom to express vulnerability reflect the dominant culture’s values and systems of control. Accordingly, healing these issues requires more than individual therapy and interventions, but social interventions. Specifically, let me recommend that mainstream psychology begin to consider efforts to promote social justice as within the scope of psychology...
I recommend what I call a “love-based psychology.” A love-based psychology is rooted in the belief that there is profound meaning in our personal struggles that can be healed when more deeply understood. It is rooted in the belief that behind our greatest difficulties are seeds of our greatest powers, beauties, uniqueness, and intelligence. It doesn’t look at people as “sick,” subtly shaming them as part of the effort to ‘heal’ them, but instead brings meaning, soul, depth, and a profound psychology into psychology.
In the words of author and psychologist Julie Diamond, Ph.D, we need to “not just talk back to Dr. Phil but to a whole century of normative psychology, an approach to mental health that has more to do with socialization than with well-being.”
by David Bedrick J.D., Dipl. PW, author of Talking Back to Dr. Phil
...Much of “mainstream psychology” treats the difficulties of individuals in a vacuum, maintaining boundaries between social action and psychological intervention. Sexism, homophobia, classism, ethnocentrism, racism, and other forms of social bias play an integral role in the suffering people experience. Women’s feelings about their bodies, black youths’ success in the public education system, gay youths’ experiences of prejudice or suicidal tendencies, and men’s freedom to express vulnerability reflect the dominant culture’s values and systems of control. Accordingly, healing these issues requires more than individual therapy and interventions, but social interventions. Specifically, let me recommend that mainstream psychology begin to consider efforts to promote social justice as within the scope of psychology...
I recommend what I call a “love-based psychology.” A love-based psychology is rooted in the belief that there is profound meaning in our personal struggles that can be healed when more deeply understood. It is rooted in the belief that behind our greatest difficulties are seeds of our greatest powers, beauties, uniqueness, and intelligence. It doesn’t look at people as “sick,” subtly shaming them as part of the effort to ‘heal’ them, but instead brings meaning, soul, depth, and a profound psychology into psychology.
In the words of author and psychologist Julie Diamond, Ph.D, we need to “not just talk back to Dr. Phil but to a whole century of normative psychology, an approach to mental health that has more to do with socialization than with well-being.”
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)
The Trauma of Everyday Life by Mark Epstein
Trauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic...Trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a lever for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. The way out of pain is through it.
Trauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic...Trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a lever for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. The way out of pain is through it.
"Absolutes do not exist in this universe. If you try to force your experiences into absolute categories, you will be constantly depressed because your perceptions will not conform to reality. You will set yourself up for discrediting yourself endlessly because whatever you do will never measure up to your exaggerated expectations. The technical name for this type of perceptual error is "dichotomous thinking." You see everything as black or white-shades of gray do not exist."
"In my experience the most crucial predictor of recovery is a persistent willingness to exert some effort to help yourself. Given this attitude, you will succeed."
“In my practice I find that the great majority of the depressed patients referred to me improve substantially if they try to help themselves. Sometimes it hardly seems to matter what you do as long as you do something with the attitude of self-help.”
“In one sense, depression can feel even worse than cancer, because most cancer patients feel hope as well as self-esteem.”
“One of the most important tasks of any therapist is to help depressed patients find the courage and determination to resist and fight these hopeless feelings. This battle is often fierce and rarely easy, but nearly always rewarding in the long run.”
― David D. Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
"In my experience the most crucial predictor of recovery is a persistent willingness to exert some effort to help yourself. Given this attitude, you will succeed."
“In my practice I find that the great majority of the depressed patients referred to me improve substantially if they try to help themselves. Sometimes it hardly seems to matter what you do as long as you do something with the attitude of self-help.”
“In one sense, depression can feel even worse than cancer, because most cancer patients feel hope as well as self-esteem.”
“One of the most important tasks of any therapist is to help depressed patients find the courage and determination to resist and fight these hopeless feelings. This battle is often fierce and rarely easy, but nearly always rewarding in the long run.”
― David D. Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
“If a client expresses a feeling toward a therapist, be that feeling anger, frustration, gratitude, or love, and the therapist can’t accept and discuss those feelings, [it’s] a problem. That’s like working with a surgeon who is afraid of blood.”
~ Ryan Howes
~ Ryan Howes
“Every person’s map of the world is as unique as their thumbprint. There are no two people alike. No two people who understand the same sentence the same way… So in dealing with people, you try not to fit them to your concept of what they should be.”
Milton Erickson (1901-1980)
American psychiatrist and psychotherapist
Milton Erickson (1901-1980)
American psychiatrist and psychotherapist
About 10 percent of psychotherapy patients get worse during treatment, and only about half get better. One reason: Many therapists do not use evidence-based techniques and procedures shown to be effective in clinical trials.
~ Stephen Ilardi, The Washington Post
~ Stephen Ilardi, The Washington Post
"I didn't learn about depression or anxiety at school. So when I had to go to my parents to say 'I need help, I need to go to therapy,' I felt like this weird, messed up kid. And I wasn't…"
~ Lili Reinhart
~ Lili Reinhart
"A lot of therapy is about the slow recovery of faith, at least more of it, a more informed faith, wiser, fuller, ready for anything. Although we can never be so ready. A respectful faith. In which caring has a real place, a caring about one's destructiveness. To care enough to struggle with it...Therapy supports or tries to jumpstart a rhythm of coming through injury, defeat, megalomania, a rhythm one goes through over and over, a rhythm of faith."
~ Michael Eigen
~ Michael Eigen
Acceptance is not merely tolerance -- it is the active non-judgmental embracing of experience in the here and now. Acceptance involves undefended “exposure” to thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations as they are directly experienced to be.
~ Steven C. Hayes
~ Steven C. Hayes
"You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level."
— Eckhart Tolle
— Eckhart Tolle
“From an ACT perspective, we're going to stop playing tug of war, we're going to put down the rope. Instead of trying to win the game, we're just going to say, 'Okay, this is what I'm feeling right now.' And learn how to be flexible and still do the things that we value in our life.”
~ Jon Ambramowitz
~ Jon Ambramowitz
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
Successful treatment requires the death of the therapist’s ego;
recovery requires the death of the patient’s ego.
~ David Burns
recovery requires the death of the patient’s ego.
~ David Burns
"In the course of psychotherapy, we help the person see the generality of his problem...As patients see, 'This problem is more pervasive than I thought,' they are occasionally disheartened somewhat...And to the extent that the problem was broader than they thought, the gain is greater when it is resolved."
~ George Weinber, The Heart of Psychotherapy
quoted in Shouldn’t psychotherapy make me feel good?
~ George Weinber, The Heart of Psychotherapy
quoted in Shouldn’t psychotherapy make me feel good?
"Only by accepting what is not possible, what is possible may become possible."
~ The Theory and Practice of Psychoanalytic Therapy: Listening for the Subtext
~ The Theory and Practice of Psychoanalytic Therapy: Listening for the Subtext
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