Quotes About Psychology

How can anger, or any other emotion or feeling, get someone to go against what they have deliberately resolved on doing? Until we have some systematic way of understanding this, we and the way we act are mysterious to ourselves.

One school of ancient philosophers, the Stoics, developed a distinctive view of Medea as part of their ethics and psychology. They think that the idea that there are really two distinct forces or motives at work in Medea is an illusion. What matters in this situation is always Medea herself, the person, and it is wrong to think in terms of different parts of her.

What happens, the Stoics think, is that, being in an emotional state, she follows the reasons which go with that state: she seeks revenge because that is how angry people think. But there is no real division within Medea's self. She oscillates between different decisions as a whole; there is no inner battle of parts of her.

The Stoics think that there are no parts or divisions to the human soul, and that it is all rational. (By the soul they mean the item that makes humans live in a characteristically human way.) Emotions are not blind, non-rational forces which can overcome rational resolve; they are themselves a kind of reason which the person determines to act on.

Elaine is just in pain. I think Elaine has become very, very sad woman. She is someone who is in deep need of many hours of analysis and I like to think that I'm not that type of person.

Mi madre decía que las pesadillas eran un aviso de la conciencia.

When we find ourselves in groups or with charismatic individuals, we might do things we wouldn't ordinarily do.

Freud had a gene for inefficiency, and I think I have a gene for efficiency.

The boy taught from infancy to be tough is emotionally doomed.

There are so many things we are afraid of, thinking that if we confront them, they will kill us. Most of it goes back to your infancy.

Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority.

I have a huge ego and a huge inferiority complex at the same time.

I do think that with any kind of infidelity, on some level - unless you're dealing with a sociopath - there's always a reason.

Once you know the emotional building blocks of anxiety, you can influence them.

The crowd may be influenced easily, largely because it is a crowd.

Psychoanalysts seem to be long on information and short on application.

It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.

For centuries, magicians have intuitively taken advantage of the inner workings of our brains.

I think I understand why most actors and actresses are insane, because having to go through an emotional roller coaster as your job every day of your life would make somebody absolutely loopy.

There's a big difference between sanity and insanity.

Nobody sets out to be evil. They're insecure, and they make bad decisions.

When people are crass or loudmouthed, it's not because they don't give a damn. It's from fear and insecurity.

Inside every adult male is a denied little boy.

People actually live with their id exposed. They're not good at concealing what's going on inside.