Good Therapist Quotes & Sayings

As Buddhism has been integrated into the West, the meaning of sangha has come to include all our contemporaries who in various ways are consciously pursuing a path of awakening. We are held by sangha when we work individually with a therapist or healer, or when a close friend lets us be vulnerable and real. Taking refuge in the sangha reminds us that we are in good company: We belong with all those who long to awaken, with all those who seek the teachings and practices that lead to genuine peace. — Tara Brach

That's the problem. I wasn't happy. I was hiding. I knew it. My therapist knew it. I wasn't going to ever be happy until I went back to doing what I was good at. And since I can't go back into law enforcement, why not go into the private sector. Gideon's call came at the right moment. — Mercy Celeste

The Jungian therapist taught me the difference between the ego and the shadow. I realized I'd been so busy being a good girl that I'd completely detached from my shadow. It's something we all have, and it's where all the creative juices are. — Sue Grafton

One of the obvious implications is that a person will have to face the fact that she cannot meet other people's expectations. This signals the end of what might be called the "camel" phase of human development. I believe it was Nietschze who suggested that for the first part of life, we are camels, trudging through the desert, accepting on our backs everybody's "shoulds" and "don'ts." Camels only know how to spit; they don't think for themselves or talk back. As the camel dies, a lion is born in its place. Lions discover both their roar and the art of preening. The lion may be a little shaky at first, so support and encouragement are vital. But once the camel begins to die (e.g., signaled by depression), there is no turning back. Symptoms occupy the space between the death of the camel and the birth of the lion. A therapist can be a good midwife during this liminal phase. — Stephen Gilligan

My brother is severely autistic, so when I was a kid I spent a lot of time as a teenager in camps and programs for autistic kids. When I went to McGill as an undergraduate, I figured I'd be a therapist working with these kids. The truth is, and I knew this even back then, I'm just not good at this. I'm too empathic to do this sort of thing. — Paul Bloom

The principals are quite simple. We can love people who treat us well. We cannot love people who treat us badly because, treating someone badly is not a virtue and we can only love virtue. I don't think that's controversial. I mean, there is no marriage therapist that I can imagine in the world who would say to a woman being beaten, humiliated, verbally abused, or completely ignored by her husband, "You just need to love him more. You need to work at making him happier." That would be sadistic in the extreme to say to someone.
So, in the same way I say, if anyone, I don't care if they are your priest, god, father, mother, or your Siamese twin cousin coming out of your elbow or ass. I don't care. If someone is treating you badly, that is not good for you. The solution is not you being so great that you both become better. That's not a realistic solution. — Stefan Molyneux

I think everything is going to be devastatingly sad - when the phone rings, I know somebody in my family's been hurt, somebody's going to die. I'm sure a therapist would go, 'That's not a good way to live,' but every time it's not that bad thing, I'm so thankful and appreciative. — Sandra Bullock

I've had small depressions, days when I've woken up and felt sad, especially when I'm so far away from home. I've got my religion and that is my therapy, although I think it would be good for me to have someone I can talk to. But I have friends. I haven't got a therapist but maybe I should. — Beyonce Knowles

When her voice cracked and tears started spilling down her cheeks, I panicked. I wasn't good at consoling people at the best of times, but even a trained therapist would have struggled in my shoes. What could you possibly say to a girl who'd dug for hours trying to rescue her family after they'd been buried alive? — Violet Cross

She never saw the point in fighting with a man who was not going to reform. Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The moldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked. There — A.S.A Harrison

Throughout our times with Christopher [therapist] we were encouraged to work together at communicating on the inside. He pointed out that it would be good for us all to listen-in when an alter was telling his/her story - that it's now safe, no harm will come to us from telling or from knowing. There was once a time when it was very important that we didn't know what had happened; that knowing meant danger or being so overwhelmed with pain and grief that we wouldn't survive. But now it was different. We're safe and strong, and our goal now are to uncover the grisly truth of what's happened to us, so that it's no longer a powerful secret. We can look at it and face the past for what it is - old memories of old events. Today is now,and we can choose to live a different way and believe different things. We were once powerless and vulnerable, but now we were in a position to make choices. We had control over our life. — Carolyn Bramhall

I think that every therapist that I know, including my dad and my sister, have their own issues. But that empathy is what makes them good at their job. — Laura Benanti

Get off your high horse and get yourself grounded! Know what it is like to have your world turned upside down! Your becoming a good therapist is not about putting yourself apart from the people you work with; it is about coming to know intimately their pain, their humiliation, and their ability to rise above it. — Catherine Hyland Moon

A good therapist uses their whole being to engage fully with the whole being of the person coming for help. — Jed Diamond

Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked. — A.S.A Harrison

She told her therapist it reminded her of coming home the summer after her freshman year at Rutgers, stepping back into the warm bath of family and friends, loving it for a week or two, and then feeling trapped, dying to return to school, missing her roommates and her cute new boyfriend, the classes and the parties and the giggly talks before bed, understanding for the first time that that was her real life now, that this, despite everything she'd ever loved about it, was finished for good. — Tom Perrotta

ABUSIVE MEN COME in every personality type, arise from good childhoods and bad ones, are macho men or gentle, "liberated" men. No psychological test can distinguish an abusive man from a respectful one. Abusiveness is not a product of a man's emotional injuries or of deficits in his skills. In reality, abuse springs from a man's early cultural training, his key male role models, and his peer influences. In other words, abuse is a problem of values, not of psychology. When someone challenges an abuser's attitudes and beliefs, he tends to reveal the contemptuous and insulting personality that normally stays hidden, reserved for private attacks on his partner. An abuser tries to keep everybody - his partner, his therapist, his friends and relatives - focused on how he feels, so that they won't focus on how he thinks, perhaps because on some level he is aware that if you grasp the true nature of his problem, you will begin to escape his domination. — Lundy Bancroft

I can't find good people" becomes "I can't know who my A players are until I challenge them to find out." "Nobody cares as much as I do" becomes "I haven't figured out how they care in their own way that can harmonize with the way that I do." "I can't afford to invest time in someone who is just going to leave anyway" becomes "I don't have time to do anything else." "I'm not a therapist, I don't have the skills to help them with their personal problems" becomes "I'm not a therapist, but I am two steps ahead of this person as a professional and can help them grow by sharing the things I've learned along the way." "We just need better systems and more communication" becomes "We don't need more communication. We need to start speaking a different language." Imagine — Jonathan Raymond

I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy - I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. — Irvin D. Yalom

I have tried to date in the past, but I could never get it to work. Trust is a big issue for me. Basically, I don't trust anyone with a vagina. I think that, essentially, all women are untrustworthy cold bitches.

My therapist is still working on that one.

Apparently, that comes from mommy issues as well as my ex-wife issues.

As you can see, I'm not a good candidate for a relationship — Samantha Towle

I've just always liked monsters, since I was a little kid. It was always the thing I found interesting. It's always what I wanted to draw; it's always what I wanted to read, and so, yeah, I don't know. It's a good question for a therapist, why I like monsters. But I tend to not question it. It's what pays the bills, so that's kind of nice. — Mike Mignola

A lot of my friends they call me 'the therapist'. They come to me looking for advice. I must be doing something right because they keep coming back. But I'm not very good at kind of looking into my own world and trying to pick apart what is really wrong and fix those things. I like to kind of shy away from certain issues and turn away. — Janet Jackson

With a drug trial, everyone gets the exact same pill or the exact same placebo. With therapy, you can't separate the tools from the person using the tools. There's no good experimental technique for measuring a therapist's kindness, wisdom or judgment. — Anonymous

If your therapist asks if you have a quarter, then politely tells you to call someone who cares ... there's a good chance you're whining! — Karen Scalf Linamen

Not even Dee's good influence could keep me from trying to hurt my parents the way they hurt me. At least that's what my court-appointed therapist thinks, and I hate to admit that she's probably right.

I also hate to admit that she's court-appointed. — Emery Lord

To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist. — Gail Sheehy

A therapist is a very smart person who wears glasses and can help you with your problems by asking a lot of questions instead of giving you shots, which is really amazing. But a psycho, as everyone knows, is a crazy person in the movies that you never want to run into in real life. So a psychotherapist is a very smart crazy person that you should stay away from for your own good. — Lenore Look

My therapist told me I need to learn to love myself. It sounds easy enough, but really, how do you just wake up one day and learn that? It feels like something you should just do involuntarily, like swallowing or blinking, but now I have to work on it. It feels so forced. I mean, I know I went to a good school, and people tell me I'm smart and creative, but I don't KNOW that. I don't know how to make myself feel that. — Stephanie Klein

Tyler, I can recommend a good therapist. There's absolutely no shame in seeking help for mental
instability."
"I'll keep it in mind. God knows I haven't been clear in the head since I got tangled up with you.
We can make an appointment together, after you move in."
"I'm not moving in with you."
"Yes, you are. — Nora Roberts

The place you have to start to be any good at this, at acting, is with yourself. Everything is inside of you, all of it - the murderer, the great mother, the therapist, the husband. Everything is inside of us. — Jane Lynch

Some say they get lost in books, but I find myself, again and again, in the pages of a good book. Humanly speaking, there is no greater teacher, no greater therapist, no greater healer of the soul, than a well-stocked library. — L.R. Knost

You can handle the wheelchair, said the occupational therapist, with a smile intended to make the remark sound like good news, whereas to my ears it had the ring of a life sentence. — Jean-Dominique Bauby

Unfortunately, victimization convinces men and women who should be looking for a Savior to search for a scapegoat. After all, if I am not to blame for what I do, the Cross is much ado about nothing. How hopelessly out of date the old spiritual sounds to us. "Not my mother or my father, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer." Victims do not need God, just a sympathetic therapist or a good lawyer.41 — D. A. Carson

Dr. Charles came to visit me one last time.
"Have you thought about what I told you?"
"Yup," I said.
"And?"
"And I think you made a really good decision by becoming a surgeon. You would have made a lousy therapist. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

Obama fans become more and more glum that he keeps flubbing the very role he was expected to be so good at: Therapist to the nation. The Great Comforter. — Tina Brown

You're dead," I repeated. "So why are you in my dream?"
He raised the bill of his olive drab ball cap with one finger. " Good question. Morbid, isn't it?"
"What?"
"Dreaming about dead peolpe. Creepy. You ever see a therapist about that?"
"I'm not -" Even in dreams, I couldn't win an argument. Even when he was dead. — Rachel Caine

Surely a good therapist should produce a Dorian Gray-style portrait from under the couch so the patient can see the person they really are. — Rosamund Lupton

I'm not very good at multi-tasking. My therapist says I have an over-developed ability to focus. — Eli Easton

The baby was warm against my chest. I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.
Sometimes we really aren't supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be more like other people. Normal people. But maybe Vanessa was right, and all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't. — Kenneth Oppel

Yes, he's a good boy. Never been in trouble at school and he's on the honor roll. Captain of the football team. All-around psycho serial killer who hides bodies in the fridge whenever his parents go out of town. (Nick)
I also eat babies for breakfast and torture small animals for fun. My therapist says I'm making real progress though. (Caleb) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If you have trouble with finding things you should get into some kind of therapy with a good therapist if you need, I mean I just believe in therapy for everybody. I really do. I don't think any body can escape it. — Joy Behar