Psychotherapy Motivational Quotes

Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.

The message is constantly displayed on television commercials, where the motive of keeping up with (rather than cooperating with) the Jonses is treated as an unquestioned value.

We reflect each other as mirrors do, but there is no need to look at mirrors that distort our reflection.

In psychotherapy, a child is never told, “You are a good little boy.” “You are great.” Judgmental and evaluative praise is avoided. Why? Because it is not helpful. It creates anxiety, invites dependency, and evokes defensiveness. It is not conducive to self-reliance, self-direction, and self-control, qualities that demand freedom from outside judgment. They require reliance on inner motivation and evaluation. Children need to be free from the pressure of evaluative praise so that others do not become their source of approval. Isn't

But how can psychotherapists purport to dispel the illusions of their clients while protecting and maintaining their own? Furthermore, a therapist's belief in and commitment to the therapeutic process ought not to be based on naive idealism, but rather on realistic appraisal.

Shame is probably our most hidden and misunderstood emotion. It’s also the one most likely to motivate men to stay away from the help they need—and need to admit they need—which can range from psychotherapy to addiction programs. Performance anxiety is driven by shame; so is the drive to overachieve; so is the pressure to man up. Shame is behind the scenes much more often than you might think.

He was not losing his family; he was not losing Harry. Their relationship was just beginning—a new chapter, a new day in his life. He would not be Pater, who had died estranged from his sons. He would do whatever it took to be a good father—not a perfect father, but the best he could be. He would be there for his son today, tomorrow, and every day after that. And he’d read that psychotherapy held much promise for people motivated to change. Damn right, he was motivated to change. He was going to hire professional help—the best.

But it’s a whole new day once you realize that your inner experience motivates your life and is crucial to pay attention to. In my years as a psychotherapist, I have witnessed many times the lightness, brightness, and feelings of freedom that occur when a person rediscovers the energy of their psychological interior. Diana Fosha (2000) calls these feelings the core state, and it’s what is recovered if psychotherapy is successful. As one man put it, his new self-awareness felt like “finally getting over a wall.” When I asked him what he found on the other side, he smiled and said, “The promised land.

I am very often asked why, at the age of eighty-five, I continue to practice. Tip number eighty-five (sheer coincidence that I am now eighty-five years old) begins with a simple declaration: my work with patients enriches my life in that it provides meaning in life. Rarely do I hear therapists complain of a lack of meaning. We live lives of service in which we fix our gaze on the needs of others. We take pleasure not only in helping our patients change, but also in hoping their changes will ripple beyond them toward others. We are also privileged by our role as cradlers of secrets. Every day patients grace us with their secrets, often never before shared. The secrets provide a backstage view of the human condition without social frills, role-playing, bravado, or stage posturing. Being entrusted with such secrets is a privilege given to very few. Sometimes the secrets scorch me and I go home and hold my wife and count my blessings. Moreover, our work provides the opportunity to transcend ourselves and to envision the true and tragic knowledge of the human condition. But we are offered even more. We become explorers immersed in the grandest of pursuits—the development and maintenance of the human mind. Hand in hand with patients, we savor the pleasure of discovery—the “aha” experience when disparate ideational fragments suddenly slide smoothly together into a coherent whole. Sometimes I feel like a guide escorting others through the rooms of their own house. What a treat it is to watch them open doors to rooms never before entered, discover unopened wings of their house containing beautiful and creative pieces of identity. Recently I attended a Christmas service at the Stanford Chapel to hear a sermon by Rev. Jane Shaw that underscored the vital importance of love and compassion. I was moved by her call to put such sentiments into practice whenever we can. Acts of caring and generosity can enrich any environment in which we find ourselves. Her words motivated me to reconsider the role of love in my own profession. I became aware that I have never, not once, used the word love or compassion in my discussions of the practice of psychotherapy. It is a huge omission, which I wish now to correct, for I know that I regularly experience love and compassion in my work as a therapist and do all I can to help patients liberate their love and generosity toward others. If I do not experience these feelings for a particular patient, then it is unlikely I will be of much help. Hence I try to remain alert to my loving feelings or absence of such feelings for my patients.

Both groups were characterized by a simplistic, one-dimensional, naïve concept of mental states, or by hyperactive mentalization (e.g., overelaborated and unconvincing interpretation of motivations, feelings, and beliefs of self and others; an RFS score of ≤3).

it should be noted that an essential variable within the psychotherapeutic process is the client's motivation or willingness to change. If this element is missing, it is difficult or impossible to make any progress, as most mental health professionals will attest. This requires that the client take responsibility for his or her behavior and choices, and exert effort to make the necessary changes.

In this process it is not necessary for the therapist to “motivate” the client or to supply the energy which brings about the change. Nor, in some sense, is the motivation supplied by the client, at least in any conscious way. Let us say rather that the motivation for learning and change springs from the self-actualizing tendency of life itself, the tendency for the organism to flow into all the differentiated channels of potential development, insofar as these are experienced as enhancing.

The mainspring of creativity appears to be the same tendency which we discover so deeply as the curative force in psychotherapy—man’s tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities. By this I mean the directional trend which is evident in all organic and human life—the urge to expand, extend, develop, mature—the tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism, or the self. This tendency may become deeply buried under layer after layer of encrusted psychological defenses; it may be hidden behind elaborate façades which deny its existence; it is my belief however, based on my experience, that it exists in every individual, and awaits only the proper conditions to be released and expressed. It is this tendency which is the primary motivation for creativity as the organism forms new relationships to the environment in its endeavor most fully to be itself.

In the post-World War II era in the United States the shape of the cultural landscape has configured the self of the middle and upper classes into a particular kind of masterful, bounded self: the empty self. By this I mean a self that experiences a significant absence of community, tradition, and shared meaning—a self that experiences these social absences and their consequences “interiorly” as a lack of personal conviction and worth; a self that embodies the absences, loneliness, and disappointments of life as a chronic, undifferentiated emotional hunger. It is this undifferentiated hunger that has provided the motivation for the mindless, wasteful consumerism of the late twentieth century. The post-World War II self thus yearns to acquire and consume as an unconscious way of compensating for what has been lost, and unknowingly it fuels the new consumer-orientated economy: the self is empty, and it strives, desperately, to be filled up.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a talk therapy based on the idea that people are affected and motivated by thoughts and feelings that are out of their awareness. Its goals are to help people to change habitual ways of thinking and behaving by helping them learn more about how their minds work, and/or directly supporting their functioning, in the context of the relationship with the therapist.

Via the role of therapist, individuals with a diffuse self-concept can, in a sense, be "all things to all people." Coming into contact with a wide range of personalities, they may vary how they relate to others according to the needs of the situation. Depending upon the type of the phase of treatment, the clinician may function as teacher, healer, advisor, confidant, psychic masseur, devil's advocate, audience, or teddy bear.

Non-professionals can also misrepresent the personal characteristics, religious beliefs, and appearance, of these therapists, can name-call and otherwise mock them, and can attribute false agendas to them, such as assigning religious motives to secular therapists working with ritual abuse or mind control survivors. For example, there is little to prevent someone from claiming on his or her own website that a psychotherapist is a fundamentalist Christian zealot at war with Satan, when that therapist might be an atheist, Jew, Buddhist, etc., who places no stock in the existence of Satan. But such a claim, when spoken as if it is fact, accomplishes its intended purpose of maligning that therapist." - Common Forms of Misinformation and Tactics of Disinformation about Psychotherapy for Trauma Originating in Ritual Abuse and Mind Control (2012)

Logotherapy, or, as it has been called by some authors, “The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy,” focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning. According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle (or, as we could also term it, the will to pleasure) on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the will to power on which Adlerian psychology, using the term “striving for superiority,” is focused.

Logotherapy focuses rather on the future, that is to say, on the meanings to be fulfilled by the patient in his future. (Logotherapy, indeed, is a meaning-centered psychotherapy.) At the same time, logotherapy defocuses all the vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neuroses. Thus, the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced. To be sure, this kind of statement is an oversimplification; yet in logotherapy the patient is actually confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his life. And to make him aware of this meaning can contribute much to his ability to overcome his neurosis. Let me explain why I have employed the term “logotherapy” as the name for my theory. Logos is a Greek word which denotes “meaning.” Logotherapy, or, as it has been called by some authors, “The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy,” focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning. According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle (or, as we could also term it, the will to pleasure) on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the will to power on which Adlerian psychology, using the term “striving for superiority,” is focused.

Jung goes on to suggest that by coming to this realization, the therapist approaches the patient as someone who holds personal meaning to him, thereby creating the optimal conditions for treatment.

Those who choose to enter the profession typically manifest significant psychopathology of their own, which, if sufficiently understood and mastered, may actually enhance their ability to understand and help their clients. From this perspective, personal suffering is a prerequisite for the development of the empathy and compassion that characterize competent therapists.

If you go back to that psychological document we call the New Testament, you'll find that it says the devil is 'the father of lies." Now the shadow never lies; it's the ego that lies about its real motives. That's why successful psychotherapy, and any genuine religious conversion, requires absolute honesty about oneself.

He argues that “man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.”2 Our fundamental drive, the motivational engine that powers human existence, is the pursuit of meaning. Frankl’s approach—called “logotherapy,” for “logos,” the Greek word for meaning—quickly became an influential movement in psychotherapy.

the threat today is not western religions, but psychology and consumerism. is the Dharma becoming another psychotherapy, another commodity to be bought and sold? will western Buddhism become all too compatible with our individualistic consumption patterns, with expensive retreats and initiations, catering to overstressed converts, eager to pursue their own enlightenment? let’s hope not, because Buddhism and the west need each other. despite its economic and technologic dynamism, western civilisation and its globalisation are in trouble, which means all of us are in trouble. the most obvious example is our inability to respond to accelerating climate change, as seriously as it requires. if humanity is to survive and thrive over the next few centuries, there is no need to go on at length here about the other social and ecological crisis that confront us now, which are increasingly difficult to ignore [many of those are considered in the following chapters]. it’s also becoming harder to overlook the fact that the political and economic systems we’re so proud of seem unable to address these problems. one must ask, is that because they themselves are the problem? part of the problem is leadership, or the lack of it, but we can’t simply blame our rulers. it’s not only the lack of a moral core of those who rise to the top, or the institutional defamations that massage their rise, economical and political elites, and there’s not much difference between them anymore. like the rest of us, they are in need of a new vision of possibility, what it means to be human, why we tend to get into trouble, and how we can get out go it, those who benefit the most from the present social arrangements may think of themselves as hardheaded realists, but as self-conscious human beings, we remain motivated by some such vision, weather we’re aware of it or not, as why we love war, points out. even secular modernity is based on a spiritual worldview, unfortunately a deficient one, from a Buddhist perspective.

Counselling & Psychotherapy In West London – Hammersmith Building a stronger and more loving you The only effective and permanent way to fight our anxiety, restlessness, fears and worries is to face them head-on. With the right guidance we find the courage and the will to wrestle these demons and emerge as a whole, stronger, peaceful and joyful person. Counselling and psychotherapy can help you grow and become the person who you were originally designed to be. My practice, Sustainable Empowerment in Hammersmith, West London provides counselling and psychotherapy for a wide range of conditions and traumas. I developed my practice, Sustainable Empowerment, as a result of my motivation to help people see light at the end of the tunnel. My purpose is to empower individuals and lead them to explore their inner strengths so that they may write their own destiny and gain more behavioural control. I can inspire you to stay strong and resilient in the face of adversity, challenges and complications.

While innovations in psychiatry and psychotherapy are important in treating mental illnesses, equally important is helping people re-establish contact with their soul. Let us think of ways in which we can motivate people to discover the healer within themselves.

Trauma-related manifestations of impaired cortical development or functioning may include communication disorders, understanding causality, motivation, academic problems, conservation of matter, ordering events, classifying, forming hypothesis, problem solving, or moral and ethical thinking.

There is one final reason for putting out this book, a motive which means a great deal to me. It has to do with the great, in fact the desperate, need of our times for more basic knowledge and more competent skills in dealing with the tensions in human relationships.