Polyvagal Therapy Quotes

... we might be drawn into a more left-centric way of hearing ... and experience the promotion of safety as a somewhat mechanical process in which A inevitably leads to B-- [ie: the belief that 'my being in a ventral state will automatically draw you into one, and if it doesn't then there is something wrong with one of us'.]

Viewing it that way encourages us to turn social engagement into a technique, even a manipulation of the other person's nervous system toward what we view as a more desirable state. Ironically, when the left hemisphere is dominant rather than supportive of right-centric attending, we have already moved out of social engagement and thus are in no position to offer safe space to another. When we make an effort to return to it, we have forgotten that neuroception is continually arising automatically and not under the control of our will.

The very pressure to activate ventral makes the space between us unsafe. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

A brick could be used in speech therapy, to cure a stutter. I mean look at me, I don't have a stutter. But to be fair, I never did have a stutter, so I can't be certain the presence of a brick had any positive effect at all. ~ Jarod Kintz

As part of his life-saving therapy with suicidal patients and his own experience in a Nazi concentration camp, Frankl learned there are three things that give meaning to life: first, a project; second, a significant relationship; and third, a redemptive view of suffering. ~ Jeff Goins

I work backwards with the ending in mind as I create art, stories, poems and books. Always in a process of becoming. ~ Jill Telford

I have a terrible problem with procrastination ... a friend told me, "Well, you should go to therapy." And I thought about it, but then I said, "Wait a minute. Why should I pay a stranger to listen to me talk when I can get strangers to pay to listen to me talk?" And that's when I got the idea of touring. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

I have often tried to imagine how I might have acted differently. Always I end up in the same place. ~ Lynn I. Wilson

I was going to be in therapy for a long, long time. I wasn't even a sentence yet. But I had some syllables, some new sounds. The first halves of the sentences I was accumulating were solid. I trusted them. ~ Heather Sellers

I've always just talked to my family and my friends. I've never been a person that's gone through excessive therapy at all. Some people might say that I should. ~ Vince Vaughn

Why are we, the most medicalized of societies, a culture in pain? ~ Marni Jackson

Well, my brother says Hello. So, hooray for speech therapy. ~ Emo Philips

There were nights when I left the sessions physically and emotionally drained after hearing the anguish pour out like blood from a gaping wound. Don't let anyone ever tell you different – psychotherapy is one of the most taxing endeavors known to mankind; I've done all sorts of work, from picking carrots in the scorching sun to sitting on national committees in paneled board rooms, and there's nothing that compares to confronting human misery hour after hour and bearing the responsibility for easing that misery using only one's mind and mouth. At its best it's tremendously uplifting as you watch the patient open up, breathe, let go of the pain. At its worst is like surfing in a cesspool struggling for balance while being slapped with wave after putrid wave. ~ Jonathan Kellerman

I learned in therapy the word "No" is a complete sentence. ~ Jaycee Dugard

For people who are depressed, and especially for those who do not receive enough benefit from medication of for whom the side effects of antidepressants are troubling, the fact that placebos can duplicate much of the effects of antidepressants should be taken as good news. It means that there are other ways of alleviating depression. As we have seen, treatments like psychotherapy and physical exercise are at least as effective as antidepressant drugs and more effective than placebos. In particular, CBT has been shown to lower the risk of relapsing into depression for years after treatment has ended, making it particularly cost effective. ~ Irving Kirsch

Everybody has a cartoon of themselves. Mine is: I write very fast, and I'm ruthlessly efficient with my time. ~ David Remnick

Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man. ~ Louis Nizer

I had a few problems. I didn't realise it until I started going to therapy. I did it for 10 years, two days a week, and pretty quickly I understood that a lot of my suffering, many of my issues, were rooted in my realising that I was gay when I was a little boy. I knew I was different. That made me very fragile. ~ Stefano Gabbana

Therapy can help you grow. Fears will just disappear. ~ Stephanie Mills

In newspapers, magazines and on television, the public has been warned off the very vitamins and other supplements that have been repeatedly proven to reduce illness in practically every instance. The effective use of food supplements and natural diet saves money, pain and lives... and you have been told not to do it. If you want something done right you have to do it yourself. This especially includes your healthcare. One of the most common questions about vitamin therapy is, are huge doses safe? This book will help answer that question once and for all, and while we are at it, here's the answer in advance. Yes. Megadoses of vitamins are very safe. Vitamins do not cause even one death per year. Pharmaceutical drugs, taken as directed, cause over 100 000 deaths annually. Still it is granted that we need access to all the tools that medicine and technology can provide, when used with caution. We must also fully use our natural resources of therapeutic nutrition and vitamins. To limit ourselves to pharmaceutical medicine is like going into the ring to fight the champ with one hand tied behind our backs. ~ Andrew W. Saul

Debriefing-style counseling after a trauma often aggravates a victim's stress-related symptoms, for example, and 4 in 10 bereaved people do better without grief therapy. ~ Winifred Gallagher

The first step of any therapy is a little self-awareness. I want you to think about the ways your habits, your belief systems, your personality quirks have been developed to help you and protect you. Then ask yourself if they are truly working or if they're hurting you. For instance, when you feel a headache coming on, focus on something in front of you. Something real, like your hand, to keep you in the moment. It sounds small, but it helps, I promise. ~ Sara Shepard

The fear of what might happen stops people but the trauma process is so beautiful and transformational.
There is nothing to fear in our emotions, they will not swallow you whole - they will speak to you in profound ways. ~ Adele Theron

You cannot do any more for me," I said. "Since I have begun to depend on you I feel weaker than ever before. I have disappointed you by acting neurotically at the very moment when I should have shown the wisdom of your guidance. I don't want to ever come back to you. I feel that I must go and work and live and forget about all this. ~ Anais Nin

What I learned about stammering was that, when as a young child you lose the confidence of anyone who wants to listen to you, you lose confidence in your voice and the right to speech. And a lot of the therapy was saying, 'You have a right to be heard.' ~ Tom Hooper

Happiness" alone does not guarantee mental health and well-being. A tempering dose of disappointment- an occasional taste of frustration and learning that you do recover from it- goes a long way toward producing long-term contentment. Indeed the ability to ride out the bad times without feeling doomed is essential to survival. When happiness is not taken for granted, and when one is acquainted with its opposite it is more easily savored and has more lasting effects. ~ Victoria Secunda

My mom ending up passing away, and I got really depressed and didn't have money for therapy, and so I started doing standup to cope with my mom's death. ~ Cristela Alonzo

The first thing you need to know if you are a survivor is that parts of you have probably been trained to create a variety of symptoms and behaviours. Abusers actually train child parts to cut the body, to make other parts cut, to attempt suicide, to create flashbacks by releasing pieces of visual or auditory memories, to create body memories of pain or electroshock, and to create depression, terror, anxiety, and despair by releasing the emotional components of memories to the rest of the personality system. The front person and most of the rest of the system do not know that this is the source of these feelings and behaviours. p126 ~ Alison Miller

People don't come to therapy for exclamation; they come for experience. ~ Frieda Fromm-Reichmann

I leaned down, grabbing his face and pulling it to mine, letting myself kiss him with every failed hope, lost dream, every frustrated moment of low self-esteem, every hidden, dark, secret, shameful thing. I kissed him like therapy. Like I could pour it all into him and finally be free. ~ Jessica Gadziala

Understanding the times means understanding the course of history and civilization, as well as understanding the present situation. If we understand how God guides the development of human history, we can begin to understand the therapies needed to correct the problems of our times. ~ James B. Jordan

(Mutt, a mentally ill brother who is setting fire to a load of expensive things from the house he grew up in and was physically abused and neglected in)
"Tuck (mutt's brother is being asked), aren't you going to stop him?"
'Why?'
'Well' - she waved her hand across the house - 'couldn't you two do something good with all this?" ...
"Yeah, but the money we earned wouldn't buy as much therapy as that fire ... ~ Charles Martin

I'm not very close to my parents. My stepfather (in my opinion) was very emotionally abusive when I was growing up and there were a lot of other issues I don't feel comfortable talking about publicly. I spent a lot of time in therapy dealing with these issues though, and I feel i'm finally starting to move past them. ~ Marie Calloway

I behaved worse than anybody for 15 years, and you have to pay the price for that. I used to blame other people, then therapy made me realise I had to change. ~ Mickey Rourke

Having a man this good looking begging me for sex was the best therapy I could ask for. ~ Lucy Robinson

Oh God, Harry, I just don't know what to do."

"Have you ever thought..?"

"What?" I ask hopefully.

Harry hesitates. "That maybe there's nothing you can do?"

It is not the answer I'm expecting. I stare at him.

"I mean, maybe – maybe this is what it's going to be like when he gets ill," Harry continues doggedly. "He'll have an episode – either of mania or depression – his meds will be tweaked, therapy will be stepped up, and everyone will wait for it to pass. Which, of course, it will do."

"And so – you're saying I should just weather the storm?"

Harry nods slowly. "I think so, yes. Otherwise you're going to wear yourself down, trying to help him, trying to make things better, when it's basically out of your control."

I look at Harry. Somewhere, at the back of my mind, I think he might have a point. But I don't want to admit it. Not yet. ~ Tabitha Suzuma

It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert. ~ Nathaniel Branden

I have more than thirty thousand hours of family and relationship counseling experience under my belt. Over the years, I have seen changes in relationship trends walk through my therapy office doors. My richest gifts are translating the complexities of love and desire in modern relationships into something simple and accessible. I can offer informed advice that makes people feel comfortable, knowledgeable, and confident. ~ Esther Perel

During my short college stint, every time I picked up a pen, this grinding, unnamed fear overcame me - later identified as fear that my real self would spill out. One can't mount a stripper pole wearing a metal diving suit. What I needed to write kept simmering up while I wrote down everything but that. In fact, I kept ginning out reasons that writing reality was impossible. I cranked up therapy and drank like a fish. ~ Mary Karr

Small wonder that we prefer to approach therapy with many rigid preconceptions. We feel we must bring order to it. We can scarcely dare to hope that we can discover order in it. ~ Carl R. Rogers

diagnosis, undertake a process of Parent Training and/or therapy Mediated by parents to promote proper ways to interact with ~ Jumt Maik

Forgive and forget.If there's anything that I've learnt this far, it's to forgive people - Balqis ~ Diyar Harraz

Gardening is the best therapy in the world. ~ C. Z. Guest

He worried that too much alone time was a bad thing. Socializing was therapeutic and was a cure for most mental issues in the world. Of course, I argued so was a double dose of Adderall, a personal phone call from Jesus and electric shock therapy. However, soon after, my cell phone died and the jumper cables for my car went missing. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist
holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew
moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling. ~ Zsuzsi Gartner

I had problems a therapist couldn't solve; grief that no man in a room could ameliorate. ~ Cheryl Strayed