Act Therapy Quotes & Sayings

What Richard Selzer, M.D. once wrote of surgery is true of therapy: only human love keeps this from being the act of two madmen. — Thomas Lewis

I stayed in therapy long enough to know that nothing that happened to me was my fault. I didn't do anything to invite it or deserve it. But that just makes it worse. Maybe I don't blame myself for what happened, but when they tell you that something was completely and utterly random, they're also telling you something else. That nothing you do matters. It doesn't matter if you do everything right, if you dress the right way and act the right way and follow all the rules, because evil will find you anyway. Evil's resourceful that way ... They tell you it was random to make you feel blameless. But all I hear them telling me is that I have no control, and if I have no control, then I'm powerless. I would have preferred being blamed. — Katja Millay

In the '80s, when Gretzky came to the World Championships in the second or third game, you'd see this guy skating circles around the other ones. Unbelievable. — Hasso Plattner

People talked about therapy and change and the power of Christ, but maybe you just had to wake up one day and say you weren't going to do it anymore, you just weren't going to act like someone who felt that way, and you had to begin by saying words that felt strange on your tongue, even if they resonated inside your heart. — Christopher Rice

From the beginning, of course, I had known that the pure forcefulness of my argument would not penetrate deep enough to effect any change. It almost never does. It's never worked for me when I've been in therapy. Only when one feels an insight in one's bones does one own it. Only then can one act on it and change. Pop psychologists forever talk about "responsibility assumption," but it's all words: it is extraordinarily hard, even terrifying, to own the insight that you and only you construct your own life design. Thus, the problem in therapy is always how to move from an ineffectual intellectual appreciation of a truth about oneself to some emotional experience of it. It is only when therapy enlists deep emotions that it becomes a powerful force for change. And powerlessness was — Irvin D. Yalom

I won't say that writing is therapy, but for me, the act of writing is therapy. The ability to be productive is good for my mental health. It's always better for me to be writing than vegetating on some couch. — Raymond E. Feist

The last act was to infect me with nightmares and paranoid delusions that would take years of therapy and metabolism-wrecking medications to rout out. — Ransom Riggs

The variety of shapes, colours and textures under her feet was, she believed, literally infinite. It must be. Each shell, each pebble, each stone had been made what it was by aeons of submarine or subglacial massage. The indiscriminate, eternal devotion of nature to its numberless particles had an emotional importance for Isserley; it put the unfairness of human life into perspective. — Michel Faber

When genuine love is released in a relationship, God's presence is manifest. — Peter Scazzero

One night I begged Robin, a scientist by training, to watch Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' with me on PBS. He lasted about one act, then turned to me in horror: 'This is how you spend your days? Thinking about things like this?' I was ashamed. I could have been learning about string theory or how flowers pollinate themselves.
I think his remark was the beginning of my crisis of faith. Like so many of my generation in graduate school, I had turned to literature as a kind of substitute for formal religion, which no longer fed my soul, or for therapy, which I could not afford ... I became interested in exploring the theory of nonfiction and in writing memoir, a genre that gives us access to that lost Middlemarch of reflection and social commentary. — Mary Rose O'Reilley

To all of you reading this who are on the fence about therapy because of the cost: It's smart money, spend it. That one hundred bucks an hour pays off down the road when you learn through therapy how to get out of your own way, stop self-sabotaging and thus make good decisions about relationships and career. Think of it as an investment in yourself. Simply going to therapy helps. Just carving out an hour for yourself, and deciding that you and your life are worth spending some time and money on makes a difference. That simple act alone boosts your self-esteem. Don't think of going to therapy as "I'm a broken pile of crap and need someone to fix me," think of it as "I'm going to change myself for the better instead of crying, masturbating and blaming my parents for the rest of my life. — Adam Carolla

Psychotherapy and counselling should make people aware of themselves and of the difficulties which they face. This then gives them the freedom to choose for themselves. In this sense, unlike behaviour therapy, psychotherapy is value-free: no advice, suggestions or recriminations are given. Indeed the only value of psychotherapy is respect for the individual. Such respect, however, in a mechanistic and objectifying society ... becomes a political act. — Paul Kline

Take D-ribose (CORvalen) 5,000 milligrams three times a day for three weeks, then two times a day. It's a powder that looks and tastes like sugar and does not act as food for yeast. It can be added to food or drinks, even hot tea. Take the Energy Revitalization System vitamin powder (by Enzymatic Therapy) or a similar multivitamin with B-complex vitamins. Take 500 to 1,000 milligrams of acetyl-L-carnitine a day for four to nine months, and then as needed. Take 200 milligrams of coenzyme Q10 daily for four months (Vitaline, Enzymatic Therapy, or Ultraceuticals brand). I would recommend the first — Jacob Teitelbaum

I think Syria is in a particularly sensitive geopolitical position in terms of the politics of the Middle East. — Edward Luck

More often than not, it's disrespectful to them (our children) - and disrespectful to their struggle with their tasks in life- if our own anxiety as parents makes us cling to our children. It's disrespectful is we demand more intimacy than they are willing or able to give. Too much involvement with our children is not an act of love- it's an act of selfishness. — Daniel Gottlieb

A good therapy helps you develop a sense of irony about your life so that when you start to repeat old and unhelpful patterns, something within you says, "There you go again; let's call this to a halt. You can do something different." Often the first step toward doing something different is developing the capacity to not act, to stay still and reflect. — Sherry Turkle

I thought therapy was a sort of magic, that you just kept talking and the very act of talking unlocked some forgotten key. — Sally Brampton

The number of 'act ive ingredients' involved in the occupational therapy process make it difficult to identify or predict factors influential in achieving or hindering the outcome (Creek et al., 2005; Paterson and Dieppe, 2005 — Anonymous

I am not really much interested in talking to adults, although I suppose practically every mother in the kingdom knows my name and my books. It's their children I love. — Enid Blyton

[T]he act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help. — Irvin D. Yalom