Since it’s the beginning of a new year, I thought I’d share with you some quotes from two of the founding fathers of therapy and therapy research from last the century. They inspired me whilst I was training to become a therapist, and still do now. Both have written many books, so if you’re looking for some illuminating reading you might like to have a look at their work:
Carl Rogers, American Psychologist, 1902 – 1987
“When I look at the world, I’m pessimistic, but when I look at people, I’m optimistic”
“I’m not perfect but I’m enough”
“In my relationships with persons I have found that it does not help in the long run to act as thought I were something that I am not”
“The more I can keep a relationship free of judgement and evaluation, the more this will permit the other person to reach the point where he recognises that the locus of evaluation, the centre of responsibility, lies within himself”
“We cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed”
Carl Jung, Swiss Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, 1875 – 1961
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls”
“The privilege of life is to become who you truly are”
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely”
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people”
“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine, or idealism”
