Quotes from Oliver James

Music is my higher power

By far the most significant consequence of "selfish capitalism" (Thatch/Blatcherism) has been a startling increase in the incidence of mental illness in both children and adults since the 1970s.

I would guess that the typical profile of a 'follower' is someone who is young and who feels marginalised, empty and pointless. They don't have an inner life.

Backing down can become a way of life.

Why are trying so hard to fit in, when youre born to stand out.

I contend that most emotional distress is best understood as a rational response to sick societies.

why are trying so hard to fit in, when you're born to stand out

why are trying so hard to fit in, when you're born to stand out

Do your own thing on your own terms and get what you came here for

Music is my higher power

Friend, you're HOPELESSLY hooked!

backing down can become a way of life

This and countless later experiences working in and around the world of "shrinks" and the mentally ill has led me to the conclusion that overinterpretation of human psychology can be inadvisable. My favorite Freud joke has him sitting in his gentlemen's club in Vienna after dinner, enjoying a cigar. A hostile colleague wanders up and says, "That's a big, fat, long cigar, Professor Freud," to which Freud replies, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

By far the most significant consequence of "selfish capitalism" (Thatch/Blatcherism) has been a startling increase in the incidence of mental illness in both children and adults since the 1970s.

Playfulness is the cornerstone of emotional fulfilment, a key to insight and volition. It can be activated by any kind of everyday task from gardening to washing up. Although we need to earn a living, and although there are many practical tasks we have to perform, living as playfully as possible makes our existence infinitely more worthwhile.

Human kind cannot bear very much reality'.

Neurosis is the rule, not the exception', and grasping this can help us to see that we are not alone. It is also the starting point for understanding what went wrong and learning that we have a choice: we can simply re-enact the past, or we can rewrite the script.

Indeed, half the battle of living a playful life lies in committing yourself to authentic communication. The fun of engagement with others soon follows.

There was not a single smoker in Europe before the sixteenth century, because until then there was no tobacco there. Very few women smoked until the twentieth century; now the habit is more popular among young women than among young men. To say that individual differences in smoking are half caused by genes is simply not true. It all depends on the environment in which the individual is living.

That genes explain our behaviour and well-being distracts attention from society as a cause; such ideas also encourage us to accept or pursue chemical, physical solutions, not social change.

How we react to our friends as well as who we pick as a lover, our abilities and interests at work, in fact almost everything about our psychology as an adult is continually reflecting our childhood in our day-to-day, moment-by-moment experience.

A man visits a psychiatrist and tells him that his wife thinks she is a chicken. The psychiatrist asks why the man does not leave her, to which the man replies, 'I need the eggs.' That pretty much sums up all the marriages that I have ever known: each person needs the other's madness.

psychiatrists who believe the illness is largely genetic find hard to explain: at least 20 per cent of schizophrenics completely recover, most of them able to live their lives without any drug treatment at all. A telling example of a recovered schizophrenic is Rufus May. Not only did he become wholly sane but, having done so, he trained as a clinical psychologist and now treats schizophrenics in a community project

Maddiyata düÅŸkün olanlar duygusal olarak daha güvensiz, daha düzeysiz kiÅŸisel iliÅŸkilere sahip, daha içtenliksiz, özerklik duygusu daha eksik, kendine güveni daha düÅŸük kimselerdir. Çocuk iseler, kendilerini baÅŸar?lar?na baÄŸl? olarak seven, onlar? maddiyatç? yetiÅŸtiren ana-babalar? vard?r.