Quotes by Psychologists - Page 24

Resign your destiny to higher powers.
William James
You may be surprised and encouraged to learn that while inability to deal with fear may look and feel like a psychological problem, in most cases it isn’t. I believe it is primarily an educational problem, and that by reeducating the mind, you can accept fear as simply a fact of life rather than a barrier to success.
Susan Jeffers
Heartbreak is awful, but truth be told, if you have never had your heart broken, then you aren't fully living. I want you to ask yourself this question because I want you to bask in the fullness of life. And in order to feel life - to experience life - you need to take risks. When you open your heart, you risk having it broken; or stated more accurately it will be broken. But do it anyway; open yourself up. If you don't, you will never know what it means to live, to love and to be with others.
Jacqueline Simon Gunn
We live by a perceptual "map" which is never reality itself.
Carl R. Rogers
Apathy's just a front. People offer it when there's something stronger hiding underneath. You have to work harder to tap into it, but then your performance has even more power.
Guy Mankowski
Everyone has a character but sometimes it becomes less.
Amit Abraham
There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst won’t happen.
Kay Redfield Jamison
The level of shyness has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I think shyness is an index of social pathology rather than a pathology of the individual.
Philip G. Zimbardo
I believe those of us who have gone through serious hardships become, in some cosmic way, related. We form a tribe of battle veterans and fellow pilgrims suffused with knowledge none of us wanted. And although the admission to the club is unexpected and painful, the people you meet once you are there and the person you become will be with you forever
Susan Mecca
Perhaps the most general and most important mental habit to instill is an appreciation of the folly of trying to draw conclusions from incomplete and unrepresentative evidence. An essential corollary of this appreciation should be an awareness of how often our everyday experience presents us with biased samples of information.
Thomas Gilovich
Doing something later is not automatically the same as doing something better
Meg Jay
All of us, have our antenna up for people who might harm us in one way or another, not just people who might hurt us physically, but also for people who might treat us unfairly, take advantage of us, cheat us or fail to do their share. And we react very strongly to be misleading by other people, is part of human nature, to guard against being hurt and exploited.
Mark Leary
Technical expertise is only a tiny portion of what it takes to be a successful employee and, particularly, a successful leader.
Joanie Connell
Just as we leave the effects of our work behind in results, we leave the effects of our interactions with people in their hearts, minds, and souls.
Henry Cloud
To be with another in this [empathic] way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish.Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, and strong - yet subtle and gentle - way of being.
Carl R. Rogers
Nobody will ever tell you who praised you but everybody would want to be the first to tell you who criticized you.
Amit Abraham
An inclusive narrative structure provides the executive brain with the best template and strategy for the oversight and coordination of the functions of mind. A story well told, containing conflicts and resolutions, gestures and expressions, and thoughts flavored with emotion, connects people ad integrates neural networks
Louis Cozolino
Families come into therapy with their own structure, and tone, and rules. Their organization, their pattern, has been established over years of living, and it is extremely meaningful and very painful for them. They would not be in therapy if they were happy with it. But however faulty, the family counts on the familiarity and predictability of their world. If they are going to turn loose this painful predictability and attempt to reorganize themselves, they need firm external support. The family crucible must has a shape, a form, a discipline of sorts, and the therapist has to provide it. The family has to know whether we can provide it, and so they test us.
Augustus Y. Napier
Social class positioning influences all aspects of everyday interaction – how to talk, if to talk and when, whom to trust, whether or not to plan or risk, what can or cannot be done, how to belong, and who to be. Of course, how people respond to these social interactions depends on how social class intersects with the meanings and practices associated with other significant sociocultural categories (gender, race, ethnicity, age, cohort, religion, geography, sexual orientation) that also influence psychological tendencies.
Susan T. Fiske
The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt. (p. 21)
Rollo May
Your typical Six-year-old is a paradoxical little person, and bipolarity is the name of his game.
Louise Bates Ames
Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.
Rollo May
It takes courage to dream, to face our futures and the limiting forces within us. It takes courage to be determined that, as we slow down physically, we are going to grow even more psychologically and spiritually. Courage, the philosopher Aristotle taught us, is the most important of all the virtues, because without it we can’t practice any of the others. Courage is the nearest star that can guide our growth. Maya Angelou said we must be courageous about facing and exploring our personal histories. We must find the courage to care and to create internally, as well as externally, and as she said, we need the courage “to create ourselves daily as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings.
Bud Harris
Learning how to fight properly and deciding what to fight about are two of the secrets to a successful marriage. It usually comes down to the "line of respect" one way or the other.
James C. Dobson
As conscious awareness awakens to the effects that environments have on the body and on one's emotional life, then there is a prodigious need to create environments that will reduce deleterious effects. "Living Beyond the Five Senses
Teresa L. DeCicco
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
John Dewey
One in four girls will experience sexual abuse by the time she is sixteen, and 48 percent of all rapes involve a young woman under the age of eighteen. It’s not surprising then, that in a society where sexual abuse of young women is rampant, many women never share their stories. They remain hidden and invisible.
Patti Feuereisen
There is no record in Scripture that an angel visited John’s cell to explain the meaning of his persecution. This great, godly man who was the designated forerunner to Jesus went through the same confusing experiences as we. It is comforting to know that John responded in a very human way. He sent a secret message to Jesus from his prison cell, asking “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3). Have you ever felt like asking that question?
James C. Dobson
Remember that self-doubt is as self-centered as self-inflation. Your obligation is to reach as deeply as you can and offer your unique and authentic gifts as bravely and beautifully as you're able.
Bill Plotkin
The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.
Daniel Kahneman
Dancing is the loftiest the most moving the most beautiful of the arts because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life it is life itself.
Havelock Ellis
Give a smile to your enemies and they will go mad wondering what you are plotting against them.
Amit Abraham
Depression is the inability to construct a future.
Rollo May
You can always evaluate a man's character by the way he speaks about his ex girlfriends and other women. When entering a new relationship or getting close with a new guy, make sure you take notice of the language he uses when referring to other girls
Miya Yamanouchi
Some survivors can be wary of most people, yet blinded by compassion toward fellow survivors or others who suffer — or who pretend to suffer, or exaggerate their sufferings, in order to take advantage of the survivor. Some survivors overidentify with other survivors, not realizing that even if someone was traumatized or suffers in a similar way, it doesn’t necessarily mean that person is honest. Being either overly suspicious or overly trusting can create problems with a partner who is able to judge the sincerity of others more realistically.
Aphrodite Matsakis
Society gives the image of sexual violators as weird, ugly, anti-social, alcoholics. Society gives the impression that violators kidnap children are out of their homes and take them to some wooded area and abandon them after the violation. Society gives the impression that everyone hates people who violate children. If all of these myths were true, healing would not be as challenging as it is. Half of our healing is about the actual abuse. The other half is about how survivors fit into society in the face of the myths that people hold in order to make themselves feel safe. The truth is that 80% of childhood sexual abuse is perpetrated by family members. Yet we rarely hear the word “incest”. The word is too ugly and the truth is too scary. Think about what would happen if we ran a campaign to end incest instead of childhood sexual abuse. The number one place that children should know they are safe is in their homes. As it stands, as long as violators keep sexual abuse within the family, the chances of repercussion by anyone is pretty low. Wives won’t leave violating husbands, mothers won’t kick their violating children out of the home, and violating grandparents still get invited to holiday dinners. It is time to start cleaning house. If we stop incest first, then we will strengthen our cause against all sexual abuse.
Rosenna Bakari
Unhappiness is the resultant of what you desire and happiness of what you don't.
Amit Abraham
Many people feel like they were born into the wrong family. Nevertheless, adults must take responsiblity for the pain of the past and create a productive life in the present.
James P. Krehbiel
...we are a narrative, storytelling species. Revealing our own histories, and understanding those of others can really help us appreciate the humanity in all of our fellow individuals.
Stephen P. Hinshaw
A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.
Daniel Kahneman
Sports is to war as pornography is to sex.
Jonathan Haidt
I cannot overemphasize the impact our childhood has on our ability to be honest because we live out what we learned as children in our adult relationships.
Cortney S. Warren
Don't quote me that's what you heard not what I said.
Lawrence K. Frank
In the case of everything that belongs to the realm of sentiment, religion, politics, morality, the affections, and antipathies, etc. The most eminent men seldom surpass the standard of the most ordinary individuals.
Gustave Le Bon
Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.
Haim G. Ginott
The belief that we are deficient and unworthy makes it difficult to trust that we are truly loved
Tara Brach
A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to endure for long. Could anything postpone for a while the hour of its ruin, it would be precisely the extreme instability of the opinions of crowds and their growing indifference and lack of respect for all general beliefs.
Gustave Le Bon
Don’t buy into the campaign that people don’t like change. We are built for it.
Stacy Feiner
The Child is the Alpha and the Omega of a parent’s happiness.
Amit Abraham
Ian pretended that not knowing what to do was the hard part when, somewhere inside, I think he knew that making a choice about something is when the real uncertainty begins. The more terrifying uncertainty is wanting something and not knowing how to get it. It is working toward something even though there is no sure thing. When we make choices, we open ourselves up to hard work and failure and heartbreak, so sometimes it feels easier not to know, not to choose, and not to do.
Meg Jay
This world disappoints you, does it not?” Quinn asked. “Your crusade was intended to create something exceptional, exquisite even. But you have become lost amongst your own desires, my friend. What you are doing no longer falls under the rubric of surgery… you work in darker hues. Kelly must be the last. Any more and the East End of London will explode. We already have Lusk and his Vigilante Committee roaming the streets, accosting every fletcher, leather apron and anyone trading with a knife. Warren is poised to retire, people are afraid. What you have accomplished cannot be understated. We have large plans for this city and our vision of social reform has been led by you… you should be proud. But the increased enthusiasm for your work threatens to undermine those plans. You are upsetting the status quo, for want of a better word.
David McCaffrey
Theory and knowledge remain suspect, not because of inherent worthlessness, but because of their historic isolation from action. Without theoretical orientation, however, action is vulnerable to oversimplified and glib imitativeness-even mimicry-and to the use of the gimmick.
Erving Polster
...young people know very little about themselves and their abilities. When the day comes on which they discover their real strong points and their weaknesses, it is often to late. They have usually been drawn into the current of a particular vocation, and have given too much energy to the preparation for a specific achievement to change the whole life-plan once more. The entire scheme of education gives to the individual little chance to find himself.
Hugo Munsterberg
Asking where memory is "located" in the brain is like asking where running is located in the body. There are certainly parts of the body that are more important (the legs) or less important (the little fingers) in performing the task of running but, in the end, it is an activity that requires complex coordination among a great many body parts and muscle groups. To extend the analogy, looking for differences between memory systems is like looking for differences between running and walking. There certainly are many differences, but the main difference is that running requires more coordination among the different body parts and can be disrupted by small things (such as a corn on the toe) that may not interfere with walking at all. Are we to conclude, then, that running is located in the corn on your toe?
Ian Neath
If we do not rise to the challenge of our unique capacity to shape our lives to seek the kinds of growth that we find individually fulfilling then we can have no security: we will live in a world of sham in which our selves are determined by the will of others in which we will be constantly buffeted and increasingly isolated by the changes round us.
Nena O'Neil
I think people need to recognize that those of us who have been so much influenced by violence in the media- in particular pornographic violence- are not some kinds of inherent monsters. We are your sons, and we are your husbands. And we grew up in regular families.
James C. Dobson
Don't believe in anyone other than yourself - every other will start believing in you.
Amit Abraham
Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered.Dr. Joseph Murphy
Joseph Murphy
If we conform our behavior to God’s ancient moral prescription, we are entitled to the sweet benefits of life. But if we defy its imperatives, then death is the inevitable consequence. AIDS is only one avenue by which sickness and death befall those who play Russian roulette with God’s eternal moral law.
James C. Dobson
You have to define success in your own way. What maintains your dignity and integrity and what is your life's plan where do you want to put your efforts. I could be richer and more famous but I would have to give up things that are of infinitely more value.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger