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Allen Wheelis

Allen Wheelis Books

Psychoanalyst

The desert

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“Neurotic suffering indicates inner conflict. Each side of the conflict is likely to be a composite of many partial forces, each one of which has been structured into behavior, attitude, perception, value. Each component asserts itself, claims priority, insists that something else yield, accommodates. The conflict therefore is fixed, stubborn, enduring. It may be impugned and dismissed without effect, imprecations and remorse are of no avail, strenuous acts of will may be futile; it causes - yet survives and continues to cause - the most intense suffering, humiliation, rending of flesh. Such a conflict is not to be uprooted or excised. It is not an ailment, it is the patient himself. The suffering will not disappear without a change in the conflict, and a change in the conflict amounts to a change in what one is and how one lives, feels, reacts.”

SufferingChangeAbuseNeuroticPhysical AbuseMidlife Crisis
Book:How People Change: A Serious Psychological Work on Human Transformation
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“One theft, however, does not make a thief . . Action which defines a man, describes his character, is action which has been repeated over and over and so has come in time to be a coherent and relatively independent mode of behavior. At first it may have been fumbling and uncertain, may have required attention, effort, will - as when first drives a car, first makes love, first robs a bank, first stands up against injustice. If one perseveres on any such course it comes in time to require less effort, less attention, begins to function smoothly; its small component behaviors become integrated within a larger pattern which has an ongoing dynamism and cohesiveness, carries its own authority. Such a mode then pervades the entire person, permeates other modes, colors other qualities, in some sense is living and operative even when the action is not being performed, or even considered. . . . Such a mode of action tends to maintain itself, to resist change. A thief is one who steals; stealing extends and reinforces the identity of a thief, which generates further thefts, which further strengthen and deepen the identity. So long as one lives, change is possible; but the longer such behavior is continued the more force and authority it acquires, the more it permeates other constant bodes, subordinates other conflicting modes; changing back becomes steadily more difficult; settling down to an honest job, living on one's earnings becomes ever more unlikely. And what is said here of stealing applies equally to courage, cowardice, creativity . . . or any other of the myriad ways of behaving, and hence of being.”

CourageCreativeViolenceStealingCowardTheftChange Your LifePhysical AbuseRut
Book:How People Change: A Serious Psychological Work on Human Transformation
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“So briefly do we raise our heads, so quick sink back. For a moment we are lifted by a wave of time, are tossed up into the sunlight of consciousness We cannot see so far as where this wave began, but maybe we have waited some thousand years for it to come, and now it is on us. This is our moment, the wave is breaking. The crest which passes through us now in tumult was shaped by the past, and we in this moment are able to shape the crest which is to come.”

YearsMomentsAblePastConsciousnessThousandShapesRaisesWaveSunlightThousand YearsTumult
Author:Allen Wheelis
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