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c890c21 "I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine - I'm here." "Is there something wrong with that?" "Absolutely." suicide sadness therapy Ned Vizzini
5e95f1d Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. writing life therapy Graham Greene
9dc9d02 "I don't-" I shake my head. (...) "What? What were you going to say?" This is another trick of shrinks. They never let you stop in midthought. If you open your mouth, they want to know exactly what you had the intention of saying." suicide sadness therapy Ned Vizzini
5fe044d I wish you'd help me look into a more interesting problem - namely, my sanity. therapy Kurt Vonnegut
d47db03 "After a while Mary said, "Zsadist?" "Yeah?" "What are those markings?" His frowned and flicked his eyes over to her, thinking, as if she didn't know? But then . . . well, she had been a human. Maybe she didn't. "They're slave bands. I was . . . a slave." "Did it hurt when they were put on you?" "Yes." "Did the same person who cut your face give them to you?" "No, my owner's did that. My owner . . . she put the bands on me. He was the one who cut my face." "How long were you a slave?" "A hundred years." "How did you get free?" "Phury. Phury got me out. That's how he lost his leg." "Were you hurt while you were a slave?" Z swallowed hard. "Yes." "Do you still think about it?" "Yes." He looked down at his hands, which suddenly were in pain for some reason. Oh, right. He'd made two fists and was squeezing them so tightly his fingers were about to snap off at the knuckles. "Does slavery still happen?" "No. Wrath outlawed it. As a mating gift to me and Bella." "What kind of slave were you?" Zsadist shut his eyes. Ah, yes, the question he didn't want to answer. For a while it was all he could do to force himself to stay in the chair. But then, in a falsely level voice, he said, "I was a blood slave. I was used by a female for blood." The quiet after he spoke bore down on him, a tangible weight. "Zsadist? Can I put my hand on your back?" His head did something that was evidently a nod, because Mary's gentle palm came down lightly on his shoulder blade. She moved it in a slow, easy circle. "Those are the right answers," she said. "All of them." He had to blink fast as the fire in the furnace's window became blurry. "You think?" he said hoarsely. "No. I know." nalla zsadist mary therapy J.R. Ward
772dccb Of course, a culture as manically and massively materialistic as ours creates materialistic behavior in its people, especially in those people who've been subjected to nothing but the destruction of imagination that this culture calls education, the destruction of autonomy it calls work, and the destruction of activity it calls entertainment. venting therapy James Hillman
d2baedd In therapy, the therapist acts as a container for what we daren't let out, because it is so scary, or what lets itself out every so often, and lays waste to our lives. therapy Jeanette Winterson
8336e29 If you examine your motive for doing anything, you'll soon discover that your reason is that you believe it will make you happy. inspire happiness motivate medications holistic-health passages-ventura substance-abuse passages-malibu self-care self-love balance therapy Chris Prentiss
56364b5 I discovered there was an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists. therapy psychology Vladimir Nabokov
9089908 How odd that we spend so much time treating the darkness, and so little time seeking the light. The ego loves to glorify itself by self-analysis, yet we do not get rid of darkness by hitting it with a baseball bat. We only get rid of darkness by turning on the light. enlightenment suffering light depression self-awareness psychoanalysis darkness-and-light darkness-within light-of-love light-of-the-spirit painful-memories self-analysis treatment healing-the-past spiritual-healing spiritual-wisdom grief-and-loss therapy ego self-help Marianne Williamson
c0ce2aa "I resolved to come right to the point. "Hello," I said as coldly as possible, "we've got to talk." "Yes, Bob," he said quietly, "what's on your mind?" I shut my eyes for a moment, letting the raging frustration well up inside, then stared angrily at the psychiatrist. "Look, I've been religious about this recovery business. I go to AA meetings daily and to your sessions twice a week. I know it's good that I've stopped drinking. But every other aspect of my life feels the same as it did before. No, it's worse. I hate my life. I hate myself." Suddenly I felt a slight warmth in my face, blinked my eyes a bit, and then stared at him. "Bob, I'm afraid our time's up," Smith said in a matter-of-fact style. "Time's up?" I exclaimed. "I just got here." "No." He shook his head, glancing at his clock. "It's been fifty minutes. You don't remember anything?" "I remember everything. I was just telling you that these sessions don't seem to be working for me." Smith paused to choose his words very carefully. "Do you know a very angry boy named 'Tommy'?" "No," I said in bewilderment, "except for my cousin Tommy whom I haven't seen in twenty years..." "No." He stopped me short. "This Tommy's not your cousin. I spent this last fifty minutes talking with another Tommy. He's full of anger. And he's inside of you." "You're kidding?" "No, I'm not. Look. I want to take a little time to think over what happened today. And don't worry about this. I'll set up an emergency session with you tomorrow. We'll deal with it then." Robert This is Robert speaking. Today I'm the only personality who is strongly visible inside and outside. My own term for such an MPD role is dominant personality. Fifteen years ago, I rarely appeared on the outside, though I had considerable influence on the inside; back then, I was what one might call a "recessive personality." My passage from "recessive" to "dominant" is a key part of our story; be patient, you'll learn lots more about me later on. Indeed, since you will meet all eleven personalities who once roamed about, it gets a bit complex in the first half of this book; but don't worry, you don't have to remember them all, and it gets sorted out in the last half of the book. You may be wondering -- if not "Robert," who, then, was the dominant MPD personality back in the 1980s and earlier? His name was "Bob," and his dominance amounted to a long reign, from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Since "Robert B. Oxnam" was born in 1942, you can see that "Bob" was in command from early to middle adulthood. Although he was the dominant MPD personality for thirty years, Bob did not have a clue that he was afflicted by multiple personality disorder until 1990, the very last year of his dominance. That was the fateful moment when Bob first heard that he had an "angry boy named Tommy" inside of him. How, you might ask, can someone have MPD for half a lifetime without knowing it? And even if he didn't know it, didn't others around him spot it? To outsiders, this is one of the most perplexing aspects of MPD. Multiple personality is an extreme disorder, and yet it can go undetected for decades, by the patient, by family and close friends, even by trained therapists. Part of the explanation is the very nature of the disorder itself: MPD thrives on secrecy because the dissociative individual is repressing a terrible inner secret. The MPD individual becomes so skilled in hiding from himself that he becomes a specialist, often unknowingly, in hiding from others. Part of the explanation is rooted in outside observers: MPD often manifests itself in other behaviors, frequently addiction and emotional outbursts, which are wrongly seen as the "real problem." The fact of the matter is that Bob did not see himself as the dominant personality inside Robert B. Oxnam. Instead, he saw himself as a whole person. In his mind, Bob was merely a nickname for Bob Oxnam, Robert Oxnam, Dr. Robert B. Oxnam, PhD." alters mpd multiple-personality psychiatrist split-personality multiple-personalities survivor alcoholism therapy mental-illness dissociative-identity-disorder psychology mental-health Robert B. Oxnam
00fc684 The power of music, narrative and drama is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance. One may see this even in the case of idiots, with IQs below 20 and the extremest motor incompetence and bewilderment. Their uncouth movements may disappear in a moment with music and dancing--suddenly, with music, they know how to move. We see how the retarded, unable to perform fairly simple tasks involving perhaps four or five movements or procedures in sequence, can do these perfectly if they work to music--the sequence of movements they cannot hold as schemes being perfectly holdable as music, i.e. embedded in music. The same may be seen, very dramatically, in patients with severe frontal lobe damage and apraxia--an inability to do things, to retain the simplest motor sequences and programmes, even to walk, despite perfectly preserved intelligence in all other ways. This procedural defect, or motor idiocy, as one might call it, which completely defeats any ordinary system of rehabilitative instruction, vanishes at once if music is the instructor. All this, no doubt, is the rationale, or one of the rationales, of work songs. music essential narrative therapy Oliver Sacks
0c87491 He had shown her all the workings of his soul, mistaking this for love. intimacy-self-sacrifice transparency therapy E.M. Forster
321213f Guilt nagged at me. She didn't technically ask me a question, so in theory, I didn't owe her a response, but the need to please her swept over me like a tidal wave. But why? She was another therapist in the revolving door. They all asked the same questions and promised help, but each of them left me in the same condition they found me--broken. therapy Katie McGarry
669cd65 Your unconscious wants to express the pain you feel about your own lost innocence. But your ego wants to keep it repressed. To the compromise is anxiety. unconscious therapy mothers-and-daughters Alison Bechdel
6169b96 "You cannot do any more for me," I said. "Since I have begun to depend on you I feel weaker than ever before. I have disappointed you by acting neurotically at the very moment when I should have shown the wisdom of your guidance. I don't want to ever come back to you. I feel that I must go and work and live and forget about all this." therapy Anaïs Nin
b15db6e I now think that was distanced me from Tricia and from the Rape Crisis Center was their use of generalities. I did not want to be one of a group or compared with others. It somehow blindsided my sense that I was going to survive. Tricia prepared me for failure by saying that it would be okay if I failed. She did this by showing me that the odds out there were against me. But what she told me, I didn't want to hear. In the face of dismal statistics regarding arrest, prosecution, and even full recovery for the victim, I saw no choice but to ignore the statistics. I needed what gave me hope, like being assigned a female assistant district attorney, not the news that the number of rape prosecutions in Syracuse for that calendar year had been nil. rape-survivor therapy Alice Sebold
0fe1970 We can order him to make appointments and talk to someone, but we can't force him to actually do the work. You've got to be willing to work on your issues. You've got to be willing to face hard truths and fight to get better. that takes courage and force of will. (Anita) wisdom therapy Laurell K. Hamilton
a75772e The Tanzanian told her that all fiction was therapy, some sort of therapy, no matter what anybody said. jumping-monkey-hill therapy Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
8b7ac27 "Je decouvris qu'en bluffant les psychiatres on pouvait tirer des tresors inepuisables de divertissement gratifiants: vous les menez habilement en bateau, leur cachez soigneusement que vous connaissez toutes les ficelles du metier; vous inventez a leur intention des reves elabores, de purs classiques du genre qui provoquent chez eux, ces extorqueurs de reves, de tels cauchemars qu'ils se reveillent en hurlant; vous les affriolez avec des "scenes primitives" apocryphes; le tout sans jamais leur permettre d'entrevoir si peu que ce soit le veritable etat de votre sexualite. En soudoyant une infirmiere, j'eus acces a quelques dossiers et decouvris, avec jubilation, des fiches me qualifiant d' "homosexuel en puissance" et d' "impuissant invetere". Ce sport etait si merveilleux, et ses resultats - dans mon cas - si mirifiques, que je restai un bon mois supplementaire apres ma guerison complete (dormant admirablement et mangeant comme une ecoliere). Puis j'ajoutai encore une semaine rien que pour le plaisir de me mesurer a un nouveau venu redoutable, une celebrite deplacee (et manifestement egaree) comme pour son habilete a persuader ses patients qu'ils avaient ete temoins de leur propre conception." therapy psychiatry Vladimir Nabokov
db14a86 To give up power to change for the better is inherently distasteful to everyone, and to force people to affirm that they are addicts or alcoholics so they can speak in a meeting is shameful and demoralizing. change philosophy recovering-addict passages-treatment rehab holistic-treatment passages-rehab non-12-step life-improvement passages-ventura pax-prentiss passages-malibu addiction-treatment alcohol-abuse chris-prentiss healing-abuse healing alcoholism therapy alcoholic recovery self-help Chris Prentiss
51f9e7f Or maybe there's one thing to say, about the capitalism of the heart, the belief that the essence of life too can be seized and hoarded, that you can corner the market on confidence, stage a hostile takeover of happiness. thoughts life therapy Rebecca Solnit
7e0c326 "Can you tell me why you added weight to your gown?" Dr. Chu asked. Another trick question. Bones shrugged. "I wanted you to think I was gaining weight." Dr. Chu nodded. "We need accurate records for every patient." (Our job is to make sure you gain as much weight as possible while you're here.) Dr. Chu leafed through Bones's file, checking off little boxes. "Since you lost weight--even with two stainless steel knives sewn into your gown, it's obvious you've been purging. Either by vomiting or--" (We have closed-circuit cameras and hidden microphones in your room.) "Or engaging in unauthorized exercise." (Bingo!) "I know this may be difficult," Dr. Chu said. "But the nutritionist and I have decided to raise your calories." (We won't be satisfied until you resemble a scrap-fed hog.) "Are you listening to me son?' Bones's eyeballs hurt from so much nodding. "Yes, sir." (Fuck you!) "One-hundred calories isn't as bad as it sounds." Dr. Chu dropped his voice, forcing Bones to learn forward in his chair. "That's it for now." -- patient-problems therapy hospital eating-disorders Sherry Shahan
8c17eee Back in grade school, my shrinks tried to channel my viciousness into a constructive outlet, so I cut things with scissors. Heavy, cheap fabrics Diane bought by the bolt. I sliced through them with old metal shears going up and down: . The soft growl of the fabrics as I sliced it apart, and that perfect last moment, when your thumb is getting sore and your shoulders hurt from hunching and cut, cut, cut... free, the fabric now swaying in two pieces in your hands, a curtain parted. And then what? That's how I felt now, like I'd been sawing away at something and come to the end and here I was by myself again, in my small house with no job, no family, and I was holding two ends of fabric and didn't know what to do next. hate life fabric confusion therapy school Gillian Flynn
cfd16b5 "How do you think your body and mind would respond if you were surrounded by psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug and alcohol counselors who subscribed to the belief that "once an alcoholic or addict, always an alcoholic or addict" and who believed that your current stay in rehab would be one of many?" holistic-health holistic passages-rehab passages-treatment-center wellbeing wellness non-12-step zen-and-the-art-of-happiness passages-ventura pax-prentiss passages-malibu chris-prentiss treatment therapy Chris Prentiss
bb38af2 "Basic misunderstandings about DID encountered in the therapeuric community include the following; * The expectation that all clients with DID will present in a Sybil-like manner, with obvious switching and extreme changes in personality. * That therapists create DID in their clients. stereotypes mental-health-awareness mental-health-professionals misconceptions therapists errors misunderstandings therapy dissociative-identity-disorder Deborah Bray Haddock
fda9a05 "Bones stared at the cheap melamine plate with an omelet, fruit bowl, and dry toast. "Is something wrong?" Dr. Chu asked. I have the stomach flu, sore throat, tooth abscess, migraine, allergy to gluten . . . . I never eat breakfast on Wednesdays or in closed rooms or during a lunar eclipse, especially in July or when I'm out of deodorant. . . "I'm just not hungry." therapy Sherry Shahan
7e895c0 Sometime, the only way you can make someone listen is with your fist. This is not a technique espoused, I know by the diagnostic manuals on most therapists' shelves. Then again nobody ever said I was a therapist. violence therapist listen therapy Meg Cabot
91625fe Babies have the power to make grumpy people happy because they love you no matter what. Dogs are that way, too. compassion love heartwarming grumpy therapy-dogs baby therapy power dog Mariel Hemingway
84fe67c "Basic misunderstandings about DID encountered in the therapeutic community include the following: deg The expectation that all clients with DID will present in a Sybil-like manner, with obvious switching and extreme changes in personality. deg That therapists create DID in their clients. deg That DID clients have very little control over their internal systems and can be expected to stay in the mental health system indefinitely. dissociative-symptoms hidden-disorder hidden-selves mental-health-system multipler-personality-disorder regression stereptype sybil mental-health-stigma therapy dissociative-identity-disorder misdiagnosis Deborah Bray Haddock
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