Quotes from Lori Gottlieb

Children, bound by parental rules, are really free only in one aspect—emotionally. For a while, at least, they can cry or laugh or have tantrums unselfconsciously; they can have big dreams and unedited desires. Like many people my age, I don't feel free because I've lost touch with that emotional freedom.

it ain't over till it's over.

Prea multi p?rinti le fac viata grea copiilor încercând, cu înver?unare, sa le-o fac? u?oar?.

It's important to disrupt the depressive state with action, to create social connections and find a daily purpose, a compelling reason to get out of bed in the morning.

I once told Wendell that I'm a terrible decision maker, that often what I think I want doesn't turn out the way I'd imagined. But there were two notable exceptions, and both proved to be the best decisions of my life. In each case, I was nearly forty. One was my decision to have a baby. The other was my decision to become a therapist.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. —James Baldwin 1 Idiots Chart note, John: Patient reports feeling "stressed out" and states that he is having difficulty sleeping and getting along

Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room, but it's very hard to give or get outside of it—even for Jen, who is a therapist.

how many people avoid trying for things they really want in life because it's more painful to get close to the goal but not achieve it than not to have taken the chance in the first place.

There's a popular saying, a paraphrase of a Robert Frost poem: "The only way out is through." The only way to get to the other side of the tunnel is to go through it, not around it. But I can't even picture the entrance right now.

Foarte multe dintre comportamentele noastre distructive prind r?d?cini într-un vid emo?ional, un gol care cauta sa fie umplut.

Sometimes we are the cause of our difficulties. And if we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens.

It's impossible to grow without first becoming vulnerable.

But those underreported numbers are still high. In any given year, some thirty million American adults are sitting on clinicians' couches, and the United States isn't even the world leader in therapy. (Fun fact: the countries with the most therapists per capita are, in descending order, Argentina, Austria, Australia, France, Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, and the United States.)

We grow in connection with others. Everyone needs to hear that other person's voice saying, I believe in you. I can see possibilities that you might not see quite yet. I imagine that something different can happen, in some form or another. In therapy we say, Let's edit your story.

stimulus and response in order to choose his freedom.

It's common for people with traumatic histories to expect disaster just around the corner. Instead of leaning into the goodness that comes their way, they become hypervigilant, always waiting for something to go wrong.

Brez izgube ni spremembe, in prav zato se pogosto dogaja, da sicer ljudje izrazijo željo po spremembi, a kljub temu ostanejo pri starem.

You have two ears and one mouth; there's a reason for that ratio"),

It may seem counterintuitive, but therapy works best when people start getting better—when they feel less depressed or anxious, or the crisis has passed. Now they're less reactive, more present, more able to engage in the work. Unfortunately, sometimes people leave just as their symptoms lift, not realizing (or perhaps knowing all too well) that the work is just beginning and that staying will require them to work even harder.

And once he was gone, I filled the void by Google-stalking him when I should have been writing. So many of our destructive behaviors take root in an emotional void, an emptiness that calls out for something to fill

To be sure, these comments are meant to comfort, but they're also a way of protecting the speakers from the uncomfortable feelings that somebody else's bad situation stirs up. Platitudes like these make a terrible circumstance more palatable for the person saying the words but leave the person experiencing the adversity feeling angry and alone.

Most things worth doing are difficult," he replied. He said this not in a glib way but in a tone and with an expression that made me think he spoke from personal experience. He added that while everyone wants to leave each session feeling better, I, of all people, should know that that's not always how therapy works. If I wanted to feel good in the short term, he said, I could eat a piece of cake or have an orgasm. But he wasn't in the short-term-gratification business.

by diminishing my problems, I was judging myself and everyone else whose problems I had placed lower down on the hierarchy of pain. You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seem like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.

impossible to grow without first becoming vulnerable.