Quotes from AARON T. BECK

When married people develop such an intense but inappropriate fixation to somebody other than their mate, they may be driven to jeopardize or even destroy a reasonable marital relationship. In the heat of passion, they seem incapable of attaching any real weight to the potentially disastrous consequences of their infatuation--the possible breakup of their marriage.

The tendency to compare oneself with others further lowers self-esteem. Every encounter with another may be turned into a negative self-evaluation.

Your spouse is your closest relative and is entitled to depend on you as a committed ally, supporter, and champion.

Some authors have conceptualized depression as a "depletion syndrome" because of the prominence of fatigability; they postulate that the patient exhausts his available energy during the period prior to the onset of the depression and that the depressed state represents a kind of hibernation, during which the patient gradually builds up a new story of energy.

When the authorities disagree among themselves regarding the correct approach to psychological problems, where does the troubled person turn for help? In view of the opposed and apparently irreconcilable views represented by the different schools, he faces a serious dilemma: He is trapped between choosing a therapist blindly and trusting to luck or trying to cope with his psychological difficulties by himself.

The therapist should not evade probing for the reasons the patient regards suicide as the only escape from his misery or intolerable life situation. The patient generally has considered alternative solutions but has discarded them as useless. The therapist should re-examine these alternatives with the patient.

If our thinking is bogged down by distorted symbolic meanings, illogical reasoning and erroneous interpretations, we become, in truth, blind and deaf.

There is a dearth of conversation that revolves simply around expressions of caring, sharing, and loving.

Sometimes a spouse, in trying to relieve a partner's distress, accomplishes just the opposite.

Since the chain reaction is circular, the depression becomes progressively worse. The various symptoms--sadness, decreased physical activity, sleep disturbance--feeds back into the psychological system. Hence, as he experiences sadness, his pessimism leads him to conclude, "I shall always be sad."

The stronger person is not the one making the most noise but the one who can quietly direct the conversation toward defining and solving problems.

The history of psychiatry shows that many ideas and concepts that once had attained the status of incontrovertible facts were later discarded as nothing more than myths or superstitions. We are forced to the realization that the study of the nature and treatment of the neuroses--or emotional disorders--does not rest on any proven theorems or generally shared assumptions.

Although love is a powerful incentive for husbands and wives to help and support each other, make each other happy and create a family, it is not in itself the essence of the relationship, because it does not provide the personal qualities and aptitudes that are vital to sustain it and make it grow.

Classical psychoanalysis regards conscious thoughts as a disguised representation of unconscious conflicts that are presumably causing the problem. The patient's own explanations are regarded as spurious rationalizations, his coping mechanisms as defenses. Consequently, his conscious ideas, his reasoning and judgements, his practical solutions to problems are not taken at face value: they are treated as stepping-stones to deeper, concealed components of the mind.

Another problem posed by excessive reliance on acceptance, admiration, or love is that we do not possess a reliable gauge that another person is, indeed, rejecting, reproaching, or critical of us.

It is impossible for a person to be loved totally, at all times by all his friends. The degree of love and acceptance fluctuates considerably.

Stop it, and give yourself a chance.

The manners that apply specifically during courtship come to be replaced over the course of marriage by a different set of manners, embodying the residual pettiness, complaining, and faultfinding of childhood.

Egocentricity is a problem, however, when it becomes exaggerated and is not balanced by such social traits as love, empathy, and altruism, the capacity for which is probably also represented in our genome. Interestingly, very few of us think to look for egocentricity in ourselves, although we are dazzled by it in others.

The cost of survival of the lineage may be a lifetime of discomfort.

If your spouse is collaborating with you, you both might want to start with making changes in communication (Chapters 14 and 15), reducing anger (Chapter 17), and introducing new methods of solving problems (Chapter 16). If you are able to cooperate to determine more precisely what your spouse legitimately wants or doesn't want, likes or dislikes, you are in a better position to make those changes (Chapters 12 and 16).

Although these domains appear to be remote from each other, the themes underlying anger and hatred in close relationships appear to be similar to those manifested by antagonistic groups and nations. The overreactions of friends, associates, and marital partners to presumed wrongs and offenses are paralleled by the hostile responses of people in confrontation with members of different religious, ethnic, or racial groups.

however, the reflexive image of the Enemy creates destructive hatred between individuals and between groups. Although these individuals or groups may feel liberated from restraints against attacking the supposed adversary, such people have actually surrendered their freedom of choice, abdicated their rationality, and are now the prisoners of a primal thinking mechanism.

to be of greater use, the rules need to be remolded so that they are more precise and accurate, less egocentric, and more elastic . When rules are discovered to be false, self-defeating, or unworkable, they have to be dropped from the repertoire.