Quotes About Psychology

there is no such thing as sane and insane. That mental health is a continuum, a line on which we all move up and down at different points in our lives. And most of the time we manage to keep out of trouble. Only sometimes we hit the buffers at one end.

That's one of Patrick's favorite theories. He read somewhere that people remember stuff better if they read or think about it right before they fall asleep.

The sense of dependence and the narcissism that were to mark, and sometimes ruin, Sylvia's relationships in the future clearly originated in her childhood fear of abandonment.

All of this internet activity creates a feeling of community, a feeling of actual connection, and therefore has within in it, if you are authentic, if you are true, real risk. But what is this risk?... The risk, it might be argued, according to psychology, is to the ego, who might want a voice that is not one of many, but singular, unique. In this time of so-many-voices-talking, how does one become heard? And what, really, is important to hear?

Most serial killers are as territorial as cougars or wildcats. They work a particular area.

Going insane is the mind's way of coping with insanity.

Having multiple personalities is the only way I can justify talking to myself.

He wasn't mad, he was sad.

He looks uncomfortable, and in this respect the garb is apt. Kevin is uncomfortable; the tiny clothing replicates the same constriction that he feels in his own skin.

Dr. Rhinestein did not test for malice, for spiteful indifference, or for congenital meanness. If they could, I wonder how many fish we might throw back.

In the very instant of his birth, I associated Kevin with my own limitations—with not only suffering, but defeat.   Eva

Over the years I observed Kevin watching decapitations, disembowelments, dismemberments, flayings, impalements, deoculations, and crucifixions, and I never saw him flinch. Because he'd mastered the trick. If you decline to identify, slice-and-dice is no more discomforting than watching your mother prepare beef stroganoff.

Kevin folded his arms and looked satisfied; I had gone back to playing Mother. "I knew exactly what I was doing." He leaned onto his elbows. "And I'd do it again." "I

There's no better way to get people to cooperate in this country than by seeming a little unhinged.

Slapping his shoulder was probably a mistake; he flinched. And for the briefest of moments I appreciated what little access we ever had to what really went on in Kevin's head, since for a second the mask fell, and his face curdled with - well, with revulsion, I'm afraid. To allow even so brief a glimpse of its workings, he must have had other things on his mind.

Money is emotional," Lowell pronounced. "Because all value is subjective, money is worth what people feel it's worth.

The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process.

You must work with the assumption that every teenager secretly worries that she's crazy.

So if your teenage daughter is developing normally, you are living with someone who secretly worries that she is crazy and who might have the psychological assessment results of a psychotic adult.

It's critical to remember that by the time teens are telling us that they feel anxious or angry or sad or any other emotion they choose to put into words, they're already using an effective strategy for helping themselves cope with it. As a psychologist, I know this through and through. As a parent, though, I often forget it.

To the extent that we retain the critical attitudes and destructive elements we have incorporated into our own personalities, we remain undifferentiated from our parents throughout our lifetime.

Our real self is under siege by our anti-self.

Understanding your subconscious and your conscious mind is the key to cultivating self-awareness.