The fact that compulsive drives for success will arise only in a competitive culture does not make them any less neurotic.
If I couldn’t be pretty, I decided I would be smart.
There is no such thing as a normal psychology that holds for all people.
The conception of what is normal varies not only with the culture but also within the same culture, in the course of time.
Life as a therapist is ruthless; circumstances that are helpful to one neurotic may crush another.
Is not the tremendous strength in men of the impulse to creative work in every field precisely due to their feeling of playing a relatively small part in the creation of living beings, which constantly impels them to an overcompensation in achievement?
If a person has had sufficient courage to discover an unpleasant truth about himself, one may safely trust his courage to be strong enough to carry him through.
Many such relations are carried on under the camouflage of love, that is, under a subjective conviction of attachment, when actually the love is only the person’s clinging to others to satisfy his own needs.
It is naturally a sign of inner liberation when a patient can squarely recognize his difficulties and take them with a grain of humor. But some patients at the beginning of analysis make incessant jokes about themselves, or exaggerate their difficulties in so dramatic a way that they will appear funny, while they are at the same time absurdly sensitive to any criticism. In these instances humor is used to take the sting out of an otherwise unbearable shame.
Pride and self-hate belong inseparably together; they are two expressions of one process.
Patients coming for consultation complain about headaches, sexual disturbances, inhibitions in work, or other symptoms; as a rule, they do not complain about having lost touch with the core of their psychic existence.
Pride in many diverse ways is the enemy of love.
Even though godlike in his imagination, he still lacks the earthy self-confidence of a simple shepherd.
When he moves away from people, he wants neither to belong nor to fight, but keeps apart. He feels he has not much in common with them, they do not understand him somehow. He builds up a world of his own -with nature, with his dolls, his books, his dreams.
For the analyst it is a source of never-ending astonishment how comparatively well a person can function with the core of himself not participating.
Whether we forget something we are not proud of, or embellish it, or blame somebody else, we want to save face by not owning up to shortcomings.
The central inner conflict is one between the constructive forces of the real self and the obstructive forces of the pride system, between healthy growth and the drive to prove in actuality the perfection of the idealized self.
The pride in intellect, or rather in the supremacy of the mind, is not restricted to those engaged in intellectual pursuits but is a regular occurrence in all neurosis.
The tenacity with which the neurotic adheres to any attitude is a sure indication that the attitude fulfills functions which seem indispensable in the framework of his neurosis.
Others are responsible for the trouble I am in – so I am entitled to repair. And what kind of repair would it be, if I made all the effort! Naturally, only a person who has lost constructive interest in his life can argue that way. It is no longer up to him to do something about his life; it is up to “them,” or to fate.