#psychology

I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain. ↗

— René Descartes

#logic #metaphysics #ontology #philosophy #psychology

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. ↗

— Sigmund Freud

#freud #irish #misquote #psychoanalysis #psychology

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement. ↗

— Abraham Harold Maslow

#psychology #self-awareness #understanding #achievement

There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some current leftist critiques, which I tend to attribute to feelings of guilt allied to feelings of impotence. Not an attractive combination, because it results in self-hatred. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#guilt #impotence #iraq-war #leftism #pathology

To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is. ↗

— C.G. Jung

#individuality #introspection #psychology #consciousness

This explosive psychological 'sneaking' occurs when a woman suppresses large parts of self into the shadows of the psyche. In the view of analytical psychology, the repression of both negative and positive instincts, urges, and feelings into the unconscious causes them to inhabit a shadow realm. While the ego and superego attempt to continue to censor the shadow impulses, the very pressure that repression causes is rather like a bubble in the sidewall of a tire. Eventually, as the tire revolves and heats up, the pressure behind the bubble intensifies, causing it to explode outward, releasing all the inner content. The shadow acts similarlyY We find that by opening the door to the shadow realm a little, and letting out various elements a few at a time, relating to them, finding use for them, negotiating, we can reduce being surprised by shadow sneak attacks and unexpected explosions. ↗

— Clarissa Pinkola Estés

#shadow #unexpected

As adults, we hvae many inhibitions against crying. We feel it is an expression of weakness, or femininity or of childishness. The person who is afraid to cry is afraid of pleasure. This is because the person who is afraid to cry holds himself together rigidly so that he won't cry; that is, the rigid person is as afraid of pleasure as he is afraid to cry. In a situation of pleasure he will become anxious. As his tensions relax he will begin to tremble and shake, and he will attempt to control this trembling so as not to break down in tears. His anxiety is nothing more than the conflict between his desire to let go and his fear of letting go. This conflict will arise whenever the pleasure is strong enough to threaten his rigidity. Since rigidity develops as a means to block out painful sensations, the release of rigidity or the restoration of the natural motility of the body will bring these painful sensations to the fore. Somewhere in his unconscious the neurotic individual is aware that pleasure can evoke the repressed ghosts of the past. It could be that such a situation is responsible for the adage "No pleasure without pain. ↗

— Alexander Lowen

#crying #emotions #feelings #letting-go #psychoanalysis

Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude. ↗

— Irvin D. Yalom

#death-anxiety #grief #psychology #staring-at-the-sun #death

You don't think your way to a new way of living. You live your way to a new way of thinking. ↗

— David Schnarch

#love

We're not excusing the ones who are mean, but I want girls to understand the psychology. It's not in everyone. But the bully needs to put this pain somewhere. ↗

— Elizabeth Berkley

#everyone #excusing #i #mean #needs