Quotes About Therapy

Às vezes, me pergunto: Quem sou eu para tomar decisões importantes na minha própria vida? Será que sou mesmo qualificada para isso? Todo mundo trava essa batalha interna em algum grau: Criança ou adulto? Segurança ou liberdade? Mas independentemente de onde as pessoas caiam nessa continuidade, toda decisão feita é baseada em duas coisas: medo e amor. A terapia luta para ensinar como diferenciar um do outro.

Nobody wants to buy therapy anymore," the consultant said matter-of-factly. "They want to buy a solution to a problem.

Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room, but it's very hard to give or get outside of it—

We all have a deep yearning to understand ourselves and be understood. When I see couples in therapy, often one or the other will complain, not "you don't love me" but "you don't understand me

therapy works best when people start getting better—when they feel less depressed or anxious, or the crisis has passed. Now they're less reactive, more present, more able to engage in the work.

A therapist will hold up the mirror in the most compassionate way possible, but it's up to the patient to take a good look at that reflection, to stare back at it and say, "Oh, isn't that interesting! Now what?" instead of turning away.

In the early sessions, it's always more important for patients to feel heard and understood than it is for them to gain any insight or make any changes.

Do you think I'm a bad person?" she'd ask, and I'd assure her that everyone who comes to therapy worries that what they think or feel might not be "normal" or "good," and yet it's our honesty with ourselves that helps us make sense of our lives with all of their nuances and complexity. Repress those thoughts, and you'll likely behave "badly." Acknowledge them, and you'll grow.

Whereas in their younger years, people often come to therapy to understand why their parents won't act in ways they wish, later on, people come to figure out how to manage what is. And so my question about my mother has cone from "Why can't she change?" to "Why can't I?

Insight is the booby prize of therapy" is my favorite maxim of the trade, meaning that you can have all the insight in the world, but if you don't change when you're out in the world, the insight—and the therapy—is worthless

Jack Kornfield said: "A second quality of mature spirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance." In therapy we aim for self-compassion (Am I human?) versus self-esteem (a judgment: Am I good or bad?).

Years later, when I've done thousands of first sessions, and information-gathering has become second nature, I'll use a different barometer to judge how it went: Did the patient feel understood?

So much of what I'm doing to help him relies on our in-the-room interaction. Say what you will about the wonders of technology, but screen-to-screen is, as a colleague once said, "like doing therapy with a condom on.

There's a biblical saying that translates roughly as "First you will do, then you will understand." Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and experience something before its meaning becomes apparent. It's one thing to talk about leaving behind a restrictive mindset. It's another to stop being so restrictive. The transfer of words into action, the freedom of it, made me want to carry that action outside the therapy room and into my life.

There's also the issue of glitches. I was once on a Skype session with a patient who was in Asia temporarily, and just as she began crying hysterically, the volume went out. All I saw was her mouth moving, but she didn't know that I couldn't hear what she was saying. Before I could get that across, the connection dropped entirely. It took ten minutes to restore the Skype, and by then not only was the moment lost but our time had run out.)

We're going out again," I announced at my final session with Evan. "But it's weird, because I don't feel the way I'm used to feeling. There was no chemistry, but I'm really looking forward to seeing him again." Evan smiled. "Isn't that chemistry?" he asked. "If you're excited to see someone again?

In therapy we say, Let's edit your story.

In couples therapy, therapists talk about the difference between privacy (spaces in people's psyches that everyone needs in healthy relationships) and secrecy (which stems from shame and tends to be corrosive). Carl Jung called secrets "psychic poison,

Sometimes people can't identify their feelings because they were talked out of them as children.

What makes therapy challenging is that it requires people to see themselves in ways they normally choose not to.

Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room, but it's very hard to give or get outside of it—even for Jen,

If you ever want proof that what people present online is a prettier version of their lives, become a therapist and Google your patients.

the upside of being a therapist's child is that nothing gets shoved under the rug; the downside

Projective identification is like tossing a hot potato to the other person. The man no longer has to feel his anger, since it's now living inside his partner.