Problem Therapy Quotes & Sayings

I have this thing for British women. I love Judi Dench. I love Helen Mirren. I love these women, and I definitely do have big girl crushes on them. — Jennifer Nettles

Ha, that's the problem. You have to exert brain control in order to do it, and isn't a lack of control over your brain why you're in therapy in the first place? — Holly Bourne

I also had a stuttering problem. In a Mexican home they don't give you speech therapy; they don't even know what speech therapy is. They just get the belt. If there's a parrot in the house, you better talk better than the parrot. — Felipe Esparza

In America, Rousseauism has turned Freud's conflict-based psychoanalysis into weepy hand-holding. Contemporary liberalism is untruthful about cosmic realities. Therapy, defining anger and hostility in merely personal terms, seeks to cure what was never a problem before Rousseau. Mediterranean, as well as African-American, culture has a lavish system of language and gesture to channel and express negative emotion. Rousseauists who take the Utopian view of personality are always distressed or depressed over world outbreaks of violence and anarchy. But because, as a Sadean, I believe history is in nature and of it, I tend to be far more cheerful and optimistic than my liberal friends. Despite crime's omnipresence, things work in society, because biology compels it. Order eventually restores itself, by psychic equilibrium. Films like Seven Samurai (1954) and Two Women (1961) accurately show the breakdown of social controls as a regression to animal-like squalor. — Camille Paglia

The 2nd secret to success is to be emotionally 'engaged' with your goals, but not emotionally attached. What's the difference? When you are emotionally engaged you create excitement & enthusiasm for the possibility of achieving your goals, but when you are emotionally attached you create fear & pain that you might not. — Hal Elrod

Deprived of bread or the equal benefits of the commonwealth, the person shrivels. Obviously. And that is a clear line to fight on. But when the transcendent energies waste away, then too the person shrivels
though far less obviously. Their loss is suffered in privacy and bewildered silence; it is easily submerged in affluence, entertaining diversions, and adjustive therapy. Well fed and fashionably dressed, surrounded by every manner of mechanical convenience and with our credit rating in good order, we may even be ashamed to feel we have any problem at all. — Theodore Roszak

Depression is a serious problem, but drugs are not the answer. In the long run, psychotherapy is both cheaper and more effective, even for very serious levels of depression. Physical exercise and self-help books based on CBT can also be useful, either alone or in combination with therapy. Reducing social and economic inequality would also reduce the incidence of depression. — Irving Kirsch

Our carbon emissions have to eventually go to zero. We have to. Otherwise we're never going to have a stable climate and that's what our goal is for human civilization to thrive, a stable climate. We don't want one that's hotter, we don't want one that's colder, we want one that's stable. — Katharine Hayhoe

No one has ever thought this: Now that I'm out of therapy and have fixed my mental problems, I think I want to be a ventriloquist. — Dana Gould

Fasting and natural diet, though essentially unknown as a therapy, should be the first treatment when someone discovers that he or she has a medical problem. — Joel Fuhrman

It is important to emphasize again and again and again that finding a cure is not the problem The cures for many cancers, if not most cancers, exist. But they are not being offered to the patient who has cancer ... Being legally permitted to use an alternative cancer therapy is the problem — Barry Lynes

A deep, black grief gripped Robert Kennedy in the months following his brother's assassination. He lost weight, fell into melancholy silences, wore his brother's clothes, smoked the cigars his brother had liked, and imitated his mannerisms. — Thurston Clarke

I wish you'd help me look into a more interesting problem - namely, my sanity. — Kurt Vonnegut

One of the gifts we receive from Jesus is an entirely new foundation upon which to build our lives. Once you receive Him, He becomes your new foundation and every day you walk with Him, you build on it. — Stormie O'martian

And yeah, I had to go to therapy to get over my childhood issues and work through my shit but you know what I found when I was done? I still liked having my ass smacked, my hair pulled and being told to get on my knees like a good little girl because that's my fucking right as a woman. And screw anyone that has a problem with it."
-Beth Anderson, The Missing Orchid — Fia Black

I dreamed what all losers dream, about one day writing a book that would bring me fame and fortune. — Umberto Eco

And, for whatever reason, identifying the root cause of my problem - like fear of abandonment or something - didn't change a goddamn thing. I could see quite clearly why I acted a certain way, but that wouldn't make me any different. I sought out craziness. I was attracted to it. No therapy could take that away. — Nic Sheff

When I step onto the court, I don't have to think about anything. If I have a problem off the court, I find that after I play, my mind is clearer and I can come up with a better solution. It's like therapy. It relaxes me and allows me to solve problems. — Michael Jordan

Individuals who are prepared unflinchingly to confront the truth about their childhood and to see their parents in a realistic light. Unfortunately, it is very often the case that therapeutic success can be seriously endangered if therapy (as frequently happens) is subjected to the dictates of conventional morality, thus making it impossible for adult clients to free themselves of the compulsive persuasion that they owe their parents love and gratitude. The authentic feelings stored in the body remain untapped, and the price the clients have to pay for this is the unremitting persistence of the severe symptoms affecting them. I assume that readers who have themselves undergone a number of unsuccessful therapies will readily recognize their plight in this problem. In — Alice Miller

Other people, too, worried about this new gap between the speeds of travel and messaging. An important London banker told Babbage he disapproved: "It will enable our clerks to plunder us, and then be off to Liverpool on their way to America at the rate of twenty miles an hour." Babbage could only express the hope that science might yet find a remedy for the problem it had created. — James Gleick

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

I hate record labels. They think they know everything. I want to hear them try to sing it. — Jessica Simpson

When we can't hold back, or set boundaries, on what comes from our lips, our words are in charge-not us. But we are still responsible for those words. Our words do not come from somewhere outside of us, as if we were a ventriloquist's dummy. They are the product of our hearts. Our saying, "I didn't mean that," is probably better translated, "I didn't want you to know I thought that about you." We need to take responsibility for our words. "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken" (Matt. 12:36). — Henry Cloud

That's the problem with reality, that's the fallacy of therapy: It assumes that you will have a series of revelations, or even just one little one, and that these various truths will come to you and will change your life completely. It assumes that insight alone is a transformative force. But the truth is, it doesn't work that way. In real life, every day you might come to some new conclusion about yourself and about the reasoning behind your behavior, and you can tell yourself that this knowledge will make all the difference. But in all likelihood, you're going to keep on doing the same old things. You'll still be the same person. You'll still cling to your destructive, debilitating habits because you emotional tie to them is so strong that the stupid things you are really the only things you've got that keep you centered and connected. They are the only things about you that you you. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

It has been fashionable in some psychiatric and lay circles to blame the mother for whatever goes wrong in development. [...]

If blame must be assessed it should be placed on the human condition which requires such prolonged dependence on one individual for development to take place. This makes the child extraordinarily vulnerable to the idiosyncrasies of that person (the mother). On the other hand, the prolonged dependence on this relationship also provides the potential for the richness of the human personality.

It is a mistake, in my judgment, in psychotherapy to encourage or side with the patient's hostility to the mother. The patient has to become aware of and express it in therapy in order to grow but whatever the source of this hostility is in the past -- be it an actual memory or a fantasy to rationalize a feeling state -- the problem is now the patient's responsibility and he must work it out. — James F. Masterson

The problem is, I don't think I've got too much to offer at the minute. I'm busy working on myself. This sounds like real therapy talk, but it's like, you've got to be happy with yourself before you can go out and get yourself a girl. — Robbie Williams

Learning how to do psychotherapy is a complex process, much of which is transacted in the relationship between the beginning therapists and experienced supervisors. When the beginning therapists encounter problems that are beyond their range of experience, the supervisors usually assist in several ways. First, the supervisors offer an intellectual
framework in which to understand the problem. References to the professional literature are often suggested. Second, the supervisors offer practical, problem-solving help with the strategies of therapy. Third and most important, the supervisors help the less experienced therapists to deal with feelings of their own that have been evoked by the patients. With the support of competent supervisors, the therapists are usually able to master their own troubled feelings and put them in perspective.
This done, the therapists are better able to attend to patients with empathy, and with a confidence in their ability to offer help. — Judith Lewis Herman

Then my father's features hardened. "You can't expect my blessings on this disastrous mistake."
The words were directed at me, but Vlad responded.
"I wouldn't insult you by asking. We both know you disapprove and we both know I don't care. Leila's opinion is the only one that matters, and she said yes. — Jeaniene Frost

Music therapy, to me, is music performance without the ego. It's not about entertainment as much as its about empathizing. If you can use music to slip past the pain and gather insight into the workings of someone else's mind, you can begin to fix a problem. — Jodi Picoult

Japanese people today think of money, just money: Where is our national spirit today? The Jieitai must be the soul of Japan. ... The nation has no spiritual foundation. That is why you don't agree with me. You will just be American mercenaries. There you are in your tiny world. You do nothing for Japan. ... I salute the Emperor. Long live the emperor! — Yukio Mishima

It has been said that if a drug has no side effects, then it is unlikely to work. Drug therapy labours under the fundamental problem that usually every single cell in the body has to be treated just to exert a beneficial effect on a small group of cells, perhaps in one tissue. Although drug-targeting technology is improving rapidly, most of us who take an oral dose are still faced with the problem that the vast majority of our cells are being unnecessarily exposed to an agent that at best will have no effect, but at worst will exert many unwanted effects. Essentially, all drug treatment is really a compromise between positive and negative effects in the patient. — Michael D Coleman

Therapy, therapists, promised a rigorous lack of judgment (but wasn't that an impossibility, to talk to a person and not be judged?), and yet behind every question was a nudge, one that pushed you gently but inexorably toward a recognition of some flaw, toward solving a problem you hadn't known existed. — Hanya Yanagihara

I have a terrible problem with procrastination ... a friend told me, "Well, you should go to therapy." And I thought about it, but then I said, "Wait a minute. Why should I pay a stranger to listen to me talk when I can get strangers to pay to listen to me talk?" And that's when I got the idea of touring. — Ellen DeGeneres

Hip-hop is mostly what I listen to, other than jazz. I've given up on pop music and indie rock. — Jess Row

We will fight race destruction through thick and thin and never CO exist voluntarily with it. — Tom Metzger

If a child stays quiet in the context of extroverted friends, or even prefers time alone, a parent may worry and even send her to therapy. She might be thrilled - she'll finally get to talk about the stuff she cares about, and without interruption! But if the therapist concludes that the child has a social phobia, the treatment of choice is to increasingly expose her to the situations she fears. This behavioral treatment is effective for treating phobias - if that is truly the problem. If it's not the problem, and the child just likes hanging out inside better than chatting, she'll have a problem soon. Her "illness" now will be an internalized self-reproach: "Why don't I enjoy this like everyone else?" The otherwise carefree child learns that something is wrong with her. She not only is pulled away from her home, she is supposed to like it. Now she is anxious and unhappy, confirming the suspicion that she has a problem. — Laurie A. Helgoe

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