Disrespect is the weapon of the weak.
Empathy grows as we learn.
Sadism is not an infectious disease that strikes a person all of a sudden. It has a long prehistory in childhood and always originates in the desperate fantasies of a child who is searching for a way out of a hopeless situation.
Society chooses to disregard the mistreatment of children, judging it to be altogether normal because it is so commonplace.
It is possible to resolve childhood repression safely and without confusion – something that has always been disputed by the most respected schools of thought.
It is precisely because a child’s feelings are so strong that they cannot be repressed without serious consequences. The stronger a prisoner is, the thicker the prison walls have to be, which impede or completely prevent later emotional growth.
We are still barely conscious of how harmful it is to treat children in a degrading manner. Treating them with respect and recognizing the consequences of their being humiliated are by no means intellectual matters; otherwise, their importance would long since have been generally recognized.
There are people who have benefited from therapy without being confronted with the past at all.
Emotional access to the truth is the indispensable precondition of healing.
The child has a primary need to be regarded and respected as the person he really is at any given time, and as the center – the central actor – in his own activity.
Parents are indeed capable of routinely torturing their children without anyone interceding.
Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.
We can never do the right thing as long as we are out to please someone else.
The commandment to refrain from placing blame on our parents, deeply imprinted in us by our upbringing, skillfully performs the function of hiding essential truths from us.
One of the best ways of keeping your temper in an argument, as most of us know only too well, is not to listen to anything the other person has to say.
If it’s very painful for you to criticize your friends – you’re safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that’s the time to hold your tongue.
One can only remember what has been consciously experienced.
The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.
Regression to the stage of early infancy is not a suitable method in and of itself. Such a regression can only be effective if it happens in the natural course of therapy and if the client is able to maintain adult consciousness at the same time.
Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one’s own despised and unwanted feelings.