Quotes About Psychology

Broken heart syndrome is a lot like a heart attack symptom-wise, but it's caused by emotional trauma instead of heart disease.

The people we define as crazy just might be more sane than you and me.

It's post-traumatic stress disorder. When these women go ballistic and shoot their husbands or slice off their dicks, they aren't thinking about the consequences . . . just about stopping the aggression.

Commandment 7: It's important to look for changes in a person's behavior that can signal changes in thoughts, emotions, interest, or intent.

when someone looks in a certain direction as they process a question or as they answer it, is that they are thinking—it is not per se indicative of deception.

Blocking behaviors may manifest in the form of closing the eyes, rubbing the eyes, or placing the hands in front of the face. The person may also distance herself from someone by leaning away, placing objects (a purse) on her lap, or turning her feet toward the nearest exit.

Conversely, when we gaze away during a conversation, we tend to do so to engage a thought more clearly without the distraction of looking at the person with whom we are talking. This behavior is often mistaken as rudeness or as personal rejection, which it is not. Nor is it a sign of deception or disinterest; in fact, it is actually a comfort display (Vrij, 2003, 88–89).

USING PACIFIERS TO READ PEOPLE MORE EFFECTIVELY

what other published works often ignore: the critical role played by the limbic system

I blame Steve Jobs. And that Zuckerberg fellow. All those clever little psychopaths who couldn't get laid in high school but make up for their sexual inadequacy by inventing technology that destroys humanity. They're the Oppenheimers of the twenty-first century.

all misbehaving children are dis-couraged. Having lost heart, they believe they must manipulate in order to get their needs met.

When you learn how to re-parent yourself, you will stop attempting to complete the past by setting up others to be your parents.

It is very common for one or both parents in a dysfunctional marriage to bond inappropriately with one of their children. The parents use the child to meet their emotional needs.

Jung said it well: "All our neuroses are substitutes for legitimate suffering.

To develop strong ego boundaries, children need parents with strong boundaries. No shame-based parent has these. Toxic shame greatly damages our boundaries. Without strong boundaries for protection, a child cannot thrive. Having damaged boundaries is like living in a house without locks on the doors.

According to Pia Mellody, when "one parent has a relationship with the child that is more important than the relationship he or she has with the spouse, and that parent has unresolved sexual issues, a strong possibility exists that the child will be emotionally sexually abused.

To be shame-bound means that whenever you feel any feeling, need or drive, you immediately feel ashamed.

Perhaps the deepest and most devastating aspect of neurotic shame is the rejection of the self by the self.

Healthy shame is the psychological foundation of humility. It is the source of spirituality. What I discovered was that shame as a healthy human emotion can be transformed into shame as a state of being. As a state of being shame takes over one's whole identity. To have shame as an identity is to believe that one's being is flawed, that one is defective as a human being. Once shame is transformed into an identity, it becomes toxic and dehumanizing.

When emotional energy blocks the resolution of trauma, the mind itself becomes diminished in its ability to function.

When we are exposed without any way to protect ourselves, we feel the pain of shame. If we are continually overexposed, shame becomes toxic.

Once one becomes a false self, one ceases to exist psychologically.

Shyness can become a serious problem when it is rooted in toxic shame.

All toxic scripts have the injunction "Don't be you." An injunction shames the authentic self and causes self-rupture.