“In order satisfactorily to function, we depend, throughout our lives, on the presence of others who will accord us validity, identity, and reality. You cannot be anything if you are not recognized as something; in this way your being becomes dependent on the regard of somebody else. You may be confirmed, or you may be disconfirmed, and if the latter is the case, often enough and pervasively enough, you simply cease to exist as a person.” AnxietyTraumaRejectionShynessValidationDepersonalizationDerealization Book:Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety Source: Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety
“The 'experts' will not change the world-- they will simply make a satisfactory living helping people to adjust to it; the world will only change when ordinary people realize what is making them unhappy, and do something about it.” DepressionAnxietyTraumaActivismSociologyPtsdPsychotherapy Book:Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety Source: Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety
“For there would be no point in painful struggle, in heroic battle against injustice, in the painstaking achievements of culture and learning, in courageous stance against cruelty or adversity, in loving self-sacrifice for others, if in fact the experience gained by just one tortured and despairing individual could simply be 'adjusted' or 'modified' by the appropriate expert.” DepressionAnxietyAdversityInjusticeTraumaActivismExpertsPsychiatryPsychotherapy Book:Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety Source: Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety