Quotes About Psychology

It is no small task to learn to see our depression, anxiety, weight, relationship problems, addictions, and illnesses as efforts of our psyche to heal us—as symptoms that are trying to get us to change, in ways that will help our lives become better on a more profound level. Jung calls learning to value our problems and how they can lead us into becoming transformed, the "teleological aspects" of symptoms.

A person's things can be a kind of exterior morphology of their mind.

Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing.

The will not to believe. It is simple human nature. When the mind cannot grasp or face up to a horrible fact it turns away, as though refusing credence will conjure away the reality.

he now knew the difference between honest fright and animal terror. One was bearable, human, not incapacitating; the other was moral castration.

food disciplines are part of every great religion. Psychologically they're almost inevitable, and extremely practical....Religious discipline is nothing but a permanent psychic shelter.

Have you ever gotten so sad that it actually feels GOOD to do something you know will make you even sadder?

Of the many things hidden from the knowledge of man, nothing is more unintelligible than the human heart.

the scientific view that all behavior is ultimately based on self-interest isn't new at all—it began its climb early in the twentieth century.

Kagan feels that in his own way, he has proven Jung right. He's found that 10 to 15 percent of infants are born with a tendency to be fearful and withdrawn, while another 10 to 15 percent are born with a flair for dauntless spontaneity

A drug person can learn to cope with things like seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to handle this trip.

Freud Wept, God cried, Even the Devil was Shamed

like when I walk along a pavement in Porteneil and I accidentally scuff one heel on a paving stone. I have to scuff the other foot as well, with as near as possible the same weight, to feel good again.

Our prisons are full of people who think they're Napoleon..or God.

A scar had been beaten into his mind which would only heal by experience.

forgetting would be inhuman and dangerous, and remembering a constant torture?

A ghastly attempt at a smile, sure to send any normal person to a therapist.

Young men are obsessed with their dads, and they remain obsessed if the dad is not around. Remember that there was a lot of discussion about how George W. Bush might have invaded Iraq to atone for the failures of his dad.

Psychology, unlike chemistry, unlike algebra, unlike literature, is an owner's manual for your own mind. It's a guide to life. What could be more important than grounding young people in the scientific information that they need to live happy, healthy, productive lives? To have good relationships?

We know what happens to little black boys that have no dads; we've heard that, we get it. But no one is really saying that young women who are born without fathers have real serious issues especially when their mother had no father and the mother has issues.

I actually taught perceptual psychology at N.Y.U. when I was younger. I was interested in the aesthetic impulse in lower primates. But what really interested me in Dian Fossey was that she made a difference - she saved the gorillas.

I was always the youngest and I think girls, period, try to psych each other out, there are a lot of head games.

If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him.

When you experience the emotion of sadness, there will be changes in facial expression, and your body will be closed in, withdrawn. There are also changes in your heart, your guts: they slow down. And there are hormonal changes.