Psychiatrist Quotes

I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this 'loss of face'—no matter how severe the punishment, even if it includes death.

What happens in a changing field of medicine, where we have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering?

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

I wonder how soon we shall be far enough along to have the physician ask: How much and what, if anything, is structural? how much Functional, somatic or metabolic? How much constitutional, psychogenic and social?

Adolf Meyer (psychiatrist)

Everything you do consciously is preserved for you: everything you do mechanically, since you did not do it, is lost.

We tend to think of dangers and uncertainties as anomalies in the continuum of life, or irruptions of unpredictable forces into a largely predictable world. I suggest the contrary: that dangers and uncertainties are an inescapable dimension of life. In fact, as we shall come to understand, they make life matter. They define what it means to be human.

Arthur Kleinman

The activity of interpreting might be understood as listening for the 'song beneath the words.

Man reacts upon and toward the external universe in three ways, namely, by his active nature ; by his intellectual nature ; by his moral nature — that is, he acts upon it, thinks about it, and feels toward it.

Richard Maurice Bucke

To have arrived at the truth means that one no longer fears death. For death and truth are similar in that they both require a great courage if one wishes to face them.

Nawal El Saadawi

In the colonies the economic infrastructure is also a superstructure. The cause is effect: You are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.

If you want fame and fortune, invent a pill.

James Crichton-Browne

The healthier people are, the more they are willing to admit to their limitations and so the more open they are to the possibility of improvement.

In all cultures, the family imprints its members with selfhood. Human experience of identity has two elements; a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate. The laboratory in which these ingredients are mixed and dispensed is the family, the matrix of identity.

Salvador Minuchin

Science has authority not because of white coats or titles, but because of precision and transparency: you explain your theory, set out your evidence, and reference the studies that support your case.

In my experience with EEG Biofeedback and ADD, many people are able to improve their reading skills and decrease their need for medication. Also, EEG biofeedback has helped to decrease impulsivity and aggressiveness. It is a powerful tool, in part, because the patient becomes part of the treatment process by taking more control over his own physiological processes.

Although humans and baboons may fight among themselves, dominate others, and keep harems, only humans have the ability to give pious excuses for what they do.

Arnold M. Ludwig

There is very much in the world that is bad. But usually the attempt to defeat evil engenders more evil. I advise you to do good; that is the only way to win the victory.

Sergei Lukyanenko

There is a growing tendency amongst the laity to tread not only the broad highways of science, but to explore its more fascinating by-paths.

Man can no more survive psychologically in a psychological milieu that does not respond empathetically to him, than he can survive physically in an atmosphere that contains no oxygen.

The recent years of the Grant Study have shown that our lives when we are old are the sum of all of our loves.

George Eman Vaillant

Adolescents who are absorbing negative messages about who they are and what is expected of them may sink to that level instead of realizing their true potential. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of being.

Daniel J. Siegel

I receive death threats on a daily basis. I'm a well-known writer in the Arab world. My writings expose me to millions of devout Muslims who have nothing positive to prove but the sheer cruelty of their teachings. Islam has deprived them of their intellectual ability to face criticism with an effective and acceptable way.

Competence in heterosexuality, or at least the appearance or pretense of such competence, is as much a public affair as a privateone. Thus, going steady is a high school diploma in heterosexuality; engagement a BA; marriage an MA; and children a Ph.D.

Combat leaves a lasting impression on men's minds, changing them as radically as any crucial experience through which they live.

Roy R. Grinker, Sr.

From this patient, and from others like her, I have learnt that seemingly epileptic reactions in adolescents can indicate the latter's capacity to step out of time. In such cases the apparent epileptic tendency disappears as the patient matures.

Arthur Guirdham