Inside Your Therapist's Mind Quotes

“psychotherapists cannot adequately master the intricacies of psychotherapy without their own very thorough analysis. This is a humbling, but necessary admission; every therapist shares problems in common with his or her own patients. It isn’t that we are fundamentally different from or better than our patients. It is that in addressing our own psychological problems, we learn essential things about ourselves, our emotions, our blind spots, our defenses. If we take the time not only to examine these issues but work them through, we have an entire layer of knowledge to transmit to our patients that we could not know about any other way. And we also know what it means and feels like to be a patient, which allows us to be more sensitive and attuned to the people who come to us for help.”
― Drew E. Permut, Inside Your Therapist's Mind: How A Therapist Thinks, And Why It Works

“Our personalities don’t just develop out of genetic selection or bad luck. Almost always, who we become reflects something essential about our family experience.”
― Drew E. Permut, Inside Your Therapist's Mind: How A Therapist Thinks, And Why It Works

“psychodynamic theory, a refinement and advancement of earlier Freudian concepts. In the most basic terms, this means that my work is generally informed by attention to the importance of childhood and adolescent experiences, unconscious motivations, and repetitions of earlier conflicts in present-day relationships.”
― Drew E. Permut, Inside Your Therapist's Mind: How A Therapist Thinks, And Why It Works