Quotes by Women Psychologists

Virginia Satir
Elizabeth Loftus
Alice Miller
Alison Gopnik
Joyce Brothers
Ellen Langer
Margaret Singer

When we inject people with positivity, their outlook expands. They see the big picture. When we inject them with neutrality or negativity, their peripheral vision shrinks. There is no big picture, no dots to connect.

The names that do the serious damage are the ones we call ourselves. The stereotypes we give ourselves are the ones that matter in the long run, not the ones imposed on us by other people.

When a depressed person shrinks away from your touch it does not mean he is rejecting you. Rather he is protecting you from the foul, destructive evil which he believes is the essence of his being and which he believes can injure you.

When we come to the end of our days, the little things will seem so unimportant compared to how well we've loved, laughed and treasured our lives and loved ones.

Loving a baby or child is a circular business, a kind of feedback loop. The more you give, the more you get, the more you get, the more you feel like giving.

The idea that positive illusions are in the service of sef-esteem virtually requires that they stay in check. If one develops substantially unrealistic expectations regarding the future that greatly exceed what one is actually able to accomplish, then one is set up for failure and disappointment, leading to lower self-esteem.

Androgyny is not trying to manage the relationship between the opposites; it is simply flowing between them.

Deep breathing brings deep thinking and shallow breathing shallow thinking.

I was born from nothing and to nothing I will return. And yet, when i say the word nothing, when i admit, at last, 'I am nothing,' i feel mysteriously like something again, ground zero, genesis, the pull of possibilities.

The protected place in space and time that we once called childhood has grown shorter.

For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.

Play Therapy is based upon the fact that play is the child's natural medium of self-expression. It is an opportunity which is given to the child to 'play out' his feelings and problems just as, in certain types of adult therapy, an individual 'talks out' his difficulties.

If we ask for more and more material for the construction, i.e. more and more choice, we're likely to end up with a lot of combinations that don't do much for us or are far more complex than they need to be.

In real life, as well as in experiments, people can come to believe things that never really happened.

Elizabeth Loftus
Elizabeth Loftus
Our general attitude toward life and our attitude toward sexuality cannot be separated. We cannot choose where we will build strongly and where we will disregard, for all the threads interweave to make the human pattern.

Nothing in science has any value to society if it is not communicated...

Soul, to me, means embodied essence, when we experience ourselves and others in our full humanity - part animal, part divine. Healing comes through embodiment of the soul. The soul in matter is what I think the feminine side of God is all about... The feminine soul is what grounds us; it loves and accepts us in our totality.

Temporary feelings of regret are a normal part of the mourning process. This helps us retrieve our lost dreams. If we hold on to regret, we risk trapping ourselves in a prison of unrealized dreams from which it is difficult to escape.

For some years now, there has been proof that the devastating effects of the traumatization of children take their inevitable tollon society--a fact that we are still forbidden to recognize. This knowledge concerns every single one of us, and--if disseminated widely enough--should lead to fundamental changes in society; above all, to a halt in the blind escalation of violence.

Alice Miller
Alice Miller
Hindsight is of little value in the decision-making process. It distorts our memory for events that occurred at the time of the decision so that the actual consequence seems to have been a "foregone conclusion." Thus, it may be difficult to learn from our mistakes.

Your typical Six-year-old is a paradoxical little person, and bipolarity is the name of his game

When people say women can't be trusted because they cycle every month, my response is that men cycle every day, so they should only be allowed to negotiate peace treaties in the evening.

We love dogs and eat cows not because dogs and cows are fundamentally different—cows, like dogs, have feelings, preferences, and consciousness—but because our perception of them is different.

Melanie Joy
Melanie Joy
I thought of the analyst Winnicott's observation: 'It is a joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found'.

Scientists still know less about what attracts men than they do about what attracts mosquitoes.

Joyce Brothers
Joyce Brothers