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Mary Pipher

Mary Pipher Quotes

Psychologist

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Famous Mary Pipher Quotes

“I wish I could have just skipped elementary school and junior high. Outside school, I loved talking to people and learning from them. I would spend time visiting with old people in their gardens and on their porches. I liked to play with little kids and chat with patients who came to my mother's office. Almost every day, I learned things about the natural world and animals, and I read more books on weekends and during the summer than I could possibly read at school. I believe I would have learned more if I had just been left alone to educate myself.”

SchoolSelf Education
Book:Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World
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“Working on my book about refugees, I learned a great deal about trauma and recover, and with the help of the people I spoke with developed what I called "a healing package of treatments." These treatments could be medical interventions from Western doctors, traditional medicines from the refugee's culture of origin, or basic pleasures. For example, a common healing package for a refugee family included going to city parks, cooking foods from their homelands, and meeting people who spoke their language. All of us can create our own healing packages by thinking about that which makes us feel healthy, calm, and happy. We can write our own prescriptions for health that include nutrition and exercise, relationships, things we enjoy, and gratitude.”

HealingHealthAgingCoping
Book:Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age
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“I do believe our culture is doing a bad job raising boys. The evidence is in the shocking violence of Paducah, Jonesboro, Cheyenne, and Edinboro. It's in our overcrowded prisons and domestic violence shelters. It's in our Ritalin-controlled elementary schools and alcohol-soaked college campuses.”

ParentingParents And ChildrenGender RolesBoyhoodRaising SonsReal Boys
Book:Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood
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“Courage has become Raiders of the Lost Ark, or riding in spaceships, killing people, taking enormous physical risks. To me, the kind of courage that's really interesting is someone whose spouse has Alzheimer's and yet manages to wake up every morning and be cheerful with that person and respectful of that person and find things to enjoy even though their day is very, very difficult. That kind of courage is really undervalued in our culture.”

PeopleKindPersonsCultureLostEnjoyDifficultInterestingMorningCourageRiskWake UpKillingEnormousManageRidingEvery MorningSpouseCheerfulRespectfulReally InterestingSpaceshipsAlzheimerArkAlzheimer'sRaidersUndervalued
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Maturity involves being honest and true to oneself, making decisions based on a conscious internal process, assuming responsibility for one's decisions, having healthy relationships with others and developing one's own true gifts. It involves thinking about one's environment and deciding what one will and won't accept.”

ThinkingProcessDecisionResponsibilityAcceptingEnvironmentHonestHealthyConsciousAssumingOneselfDevelopingBeing HonestMaturityInternalsMaking DecisionsRelationships With OthersHealthy RelationshipTrue To OneselfTrue GiftsAssuming Responsibility
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Adolescence is a time when children are supposed to move away from parents who are holding firm and protective behind them. When the parents disconnect, the children have no base to move away from or return to. They aren't ready to face the world alone. With divorce, adolescents feel abandoned, and they are outraged at that abandonment. They are angry at both parents for letting them down. Often they feel that their parents broke the rules and so now they can too.”

WorldFeelsChildrenFacesMovingParentBehindsReadyReturnAngryDivorceBrokeFirmAbandonedAdolescenceAbandonmentProtectiveOutraged
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Adolescents' immature thinking makes it difficult for them to process the divorce. They tend to see things in black-and-white terms and have trouble putting events into perspective. They are absolute in their judgments and expect perfection in parents. They are likely to be self-conscious about their parent's failures and critical of their every move. They have the expectations that parents will keep them safe and happy and are shocked by the broken covenant. Adolescents are unforgiving.”

ThinkingSelfMovingProcessParentDifficultBlackTermWhiteTroubleEventsBrokenPerspectiveSafeJudgmentExpectationsConsciousPerfectionAbsolutesDivorceCriticalBlack And WhiteShockedSelf ConsciousCovenantImmatureUnforgiving
Book:Reviving Ophelia
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“Teenage girls are extremists who see the world in black-and- white terms, missing shades of gray. Life is either marvelous or notworth living. School is either pure torment or is going fantastically. Other people are either great or horrible, and they themselves are wonderful or pathetic failures. One day a girl will refer to herself as "the goddess of social life" and the next day she'll regret that she's the "ultimate in nerdosity.”

PeopleWorldSchoolLife IsGirlNextSocialBlackTermWhiteWonderfulMissingRegretOne DayPureUltimateHorribleGrayShadeGoddessBlack And WhiteAdolescenceMarvelousTeenageNext DayTormentPatheticExtremistSocial LifeTeenage GirlShades Of Gray
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Girls face two major sexual issues in America in the 1990s: One is an old issue of coming to terms with their own sexuality, defining a sexual self, making sexual choices and learning to enjoy sex. The other issue concerns the dangers girls face of being sexually assaulted. By late adolescence, most girls today either have been traumatized or know girls who have. They are fearful of males even as they are trying to develop intimate relations with them.”

KnowsTryingHas BeensTwoSelfTodayAmericaFacesChoicesGirlSexEnjoyTermIssuesDangerLateMajorsConcernRelationMalesSexualityIntimateFearfulAdolescenceDefiningSexually
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Girls have long been evaluated on the basis of appearance and caught in myriad double binds: achieve, but not too much, be polite,but be yourself, be feminine and adult; be aware of our cultural heritage, but don't comment on the sexism. . . . Girls are trained to be less than who they really are. They are trained to be what the culture wants of its young women, not what they themselves want to become.”

WantLongYoungCultureGirlToo MuchAchieveAdultsBasesCaughtAppearanceBeing YourselfFeminineSexismCommentHeritageYoung WomenPoliteCultural Heritage
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Adolescents are travelers, far from home with no native land, neither children nor adults. They are jet-setters who fly from one country to another with amazing speed. Sometimes they are four years old, an hour later they are twenty-five. They don't really fit anywhere. There's a yearning for place, a search for solid ground.”

YearsChildrenCountrySometimesHomeHoursFiveFourLandFitAdultsTwentiesSpeedNativeFour YearsYearningTravelerJetTwenty FiveNative Land
Book:Reviving Ophelia
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“I think anorexia is a metaphor. It is a young woman's statement that she will become what the culture asks of its women, which is that they be thin and nonthreatening. Anorexia signifies that a young woman is so delicate that, like the women of China with their tiny broken feet, she needs a man to shelter and protect her from a world she cannot handle. Anorexic women signal with their bodies "I will take up only a small amount of space. I won't get in the way." They signal "I won't be intimidating or threatening." (Who is afraid of a seventy-pound adult?)”

ThinkingMenWorldWayNeedsBodyYoungCultureAsksSpaceFeetBrokenAmountProtectAdultsMetaphorChinaTinyHandleStatementsPoundsDelicateShelterYoung WomenThreateningSignalsSeventiesIntimidatingAnorexiaSmall AmountsAnorexics
Author:Mary Pipher
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“When Europeans arrived on this continent, they blew it with the Native Americans. They plowed over them, taking as much as they could of their land and valuables, and respecting almost nothing about the native cultures. They lost the wisdom of the indigenous peoples-wisdom about the land and connectedness to the great web of life...We have another chance with all these refugees. People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America.”

PeopleAmericaCultureLostChanceTeachLandProduceTraditionNativeContinentsNative AmericanRefugeeIndigenousConnectednessAnother ChanceWeb Of Life
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Girls who stay true to themselves manage to find some way to respect the parts of themselves that are spiritual. They work for the betterment of the world. Girls who act from their false selves are often cynical about making the world a better place. They have given up hope. Only when they reconnect with the parts of themselves that are alive and true will they again have the energy to take on the culture and fight to save the planet.”

WorldWaySelfSpiritualCultureGirlFightingEnergyGivenAlivePlanetsManageCynicalBetter PlaceGiven UpStay TrueBettermentSwaggerSave The Planet
Author:Mary Pipher
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“Good therapy, gently but firmly, moves people out of denial and compartmentalization. It helps clients to develop richer inner lives and greater self-knowledge. It teaches clients to live harmoniously with others and it enhances Existential consciousness, and allows people to take responsibility for their effects on the world at large. For me , happiness is about appreciating what one has. Practically speaking,this means lowering expectations about what is fair, possible and likely. It means,finding pleasure in the ordinary.”

PeopleWorldMeanSelfHelpingMovingPleasureConsciousnessResponsibilityTeachGreaterEffectsFindingsOrdinaryExpectationsFairsAppreciateDenialTherapyClientsExistentialSelf KnowledgeTaking ResponsibilityInner Life
Book:Letters to a Young Therapist: Stories of Hope and Healing
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“Many young women are less whole and androgynous than they were at age ten. They are more appearance-conscious and sex-conscious. They are quieter, more fearful of holding strong opinions, more careful what they say and less honest. They are more likely to second-guess themselves and to be self-critical. They are bigger worriers and more effective people pleasers. They are less likely to play sports, love math and science and plan on being president. They hide their intelligence. Many must fight for years to regain all the territory they lost.”

PeopleLoveYearsSelfPlayWholeAgeYoungFightingLostStrongSexSportsPresidentOpinionPlansHonestTenConsciousBiggerCarefulAppearanceCriticalMathTerritoryFearfulYoung WomenMath And SciencePleasersStrong OpinionsAndrogynousMath Love
Book:Reviving Ophelia
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“We live in a world filled with language. Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human community. Writers are either polluters or part of the clean-up team. Just as the language of power and greed has the potential to destroy us, the language of reason and empathy has the power to save us. Writers can inspire a kinder, fairer, more beautiful world, or invite selfishness, stereotyping, and violence. Writers can unite people or divide them.”

PeopleWorldHumansReasonBeautifulLanguageCommunityViolenceTeamIdentityInspirePerspectiveEmpathyFilledCleanGreedSelfishnessDividesInvitesStereotypeImpartKinderBeautiful World
Author:Mary Pipher
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