Quotes from Catherine Gildiner

Patients who are rarely praised as children often distrust the positive things people say about them as adults. A child's concept of self is formed in childhood and it takes a long time, with many affirmative examples, to turn that self-concept around.

obsessions: they're essentially defence mechanisms that protect patients from looking at what really terrifies them.

anger is a signal that someone wants to be treated differently, which is healthy; cruelty is when someone deliberately wants to hurt someone else.

drugs work only if there's a physical problem. All the increased blood flow in the world won't solve an emotional problem. In any sexual response, the mind has to work in conjunction with the body.

You know, anger has a bad rap," I ventured. "Anger is the fuel you use to drive up feelings of hurt and pain from your unconscious. It's how people tell others that they're displeased with their behaviour. The man calling you Tonto is disrespecting you,

No matter what it was or is," I said, "you have the right to make a request. You don't have to endure, as you say, 'the shivers.

If you point out a "truth," for want of a better word, to patients before they're able to hear or admit it, they lose trust in the therapist; their defences take over, and they improve only superficially. Overinterpreting to the client is the sign of a new or insecure therapist. A therapist can lead patients to the door of understanding, but they shouldn't drag them in. Their patients will enter when they're ready.

Often people's worst pain is built on a false premise.

Failure is built into that plan.

Shaming and teasing as an alternative to loss of privileges and parental anger can serve to erode self-esteem and give rise to an overwhelming sense of humiliation when encountered later in life.

powerlessness in a relationship is one of the main causes of stress or anxiety.

One of the big risks in treating depersonalization—the condition where one loses all sense of identity—is what happens when that person regains a sense of self.

sometimes grandparents who are warm and kind may have been far less so when they were parents. People will often mellow in old age.

When you can't acknowledge your true feelings because they're too excruciating, you defend against them with anger.

Anger is the fuel you use to drive up feelings of hurt and pain from your unconscious. It's how people tell others that they're displeased with their behaviour.

People who have PTSD are hyper-alert. Their immune system never rests—it's seen so much danger that it's scanning the environment constantly. That's part of what makes PTSD so hard to live with.

I explained to Madeline that her mother had a common disorder called trichotillomania, which is the compulsive urge to pull out (and, in some cases, eat) one's own hair. It leads to noticeable hair loss, distress, and social or functional impairment. An impulse-control disorder, it's often chronic and difficult to treat.

her painful herpes. "I would say that shame could certainly cause stress," I responded. "Shame is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by behaviour that is somehow taboo in our society. Freud says shame makes you feel you won't be loved. Shame is much more pernicious than guilt. While guilt is a painful feeling about your actions, shame is much more psychologically destructive because it's a bad feeling about yourself as a person.

Rather, it's a matter of getting your unconscious to stop controlling your conscious mind. Effective therapy is about lowering your defences so that you can deal with the issues that arise in your life.

PTSD. People who have PTSD are hyper-alert. Their immune system never rests—it's seen so much danger that it's scanning the environment constantly.

The stronger a person's boundaries are, the healthier that person is;

IN MANY WAYS, psychology is like archaeology. As you dig down to uncover each layer and carefully dust off the artifacts that emerge, you eventually find a whole buried world that seems stranger than fiction.