Positive Therapeutic Quotes & Sayings

Knowing how you want to use music is extremely important, as is understanding the potential psychological and physiological effects that are inherent in the music. Slow pulsed New Age music is excellent, of course, for relaxation but it's not ideal for dancing. Yet, if dancing (and the extraordinary energy release found by dancing) is desired, slow New Age music is not ideal. What is your purpose for using a specific piece of music? Is it for meditation, guided imagery, dance, deep recollection, or for emotional release?

Realizing that every type of music has the ability to resonate with us on many different levels, it is possible that any type of music can have positive results. We should be open-minded about all music and the possible transformative and therapeutic results that can occur from it. — Jonathan Goldman

People who are diagnosed as having "generalized anxiety disorder" are afflicted by three major problems that many of us experience to a lesser extent from time to time. First and foremost, says Rapgay, the natural human inclination to focus on threats and bad news is strongly amplified in them, so that even significant positive events get suppressed. An inflexible mentality and tendency toward excessive verbalizing make therapeutic intervention a further challenge. — Winifred Gallagher

The genius of Peterson and Seligman's classification is to get the conversation going, to propose a specific list of strengths and virtues, and then let the scientific and therapeutic communities work out the details. Just as the DSM is thoroughly revised every ten or fifteen years, the classification of strengths and virtues (known among positive psychologists as the "un-DSM") is sure to be revised and improved in a few years. In daring to be specific, in daring to be wrong, Peterson and Seligman have demonstrated ingenuity, leadership, and hope. — Jonathan Haidt

I believe that all learning is relational. Teachers who try to teach without first having created a positive relationship with their students may only be wasting much of their great knowledge. Establish an encouraging relationship with a child, and you can teach him or her almost anything. Establish a strong therapeutic alliance with your client, and he or she might even be willing to build new neuronal pathways that indicate that trust, love, and unconditional worth are possible for him or her too. — Elsie Jones-Smith