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Philippa Perry

Philippa Perry Quotes

Psychotherapist

Philippa Perry is a renowned British psychotherapist known for her contributions to the field of psychotherapy. Born on November 1, 1957, she has a deep interest in psychology from a young age and has dedicated her career to helping people with psychological issues.

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All Brain Ifs Challenges Capacity Connections May Mean Pathways Self Thinking

Famous Philippa Perry Quotes

“I remember saying to some of my fellow students, 'Does anyone want a coffee?' They all shook their heads and asked me to rephrase my question to reflect my real feelings. So I had to feel and think and then I came up with, 'I want coffee and I want you to come with me.' Having tried it, I found I really liked this process of turning a ritualized question into a statement, and I still try to do this when I remember.”

Feelings Growth Honesty Reflection Self Awareness Personal Development Openness True Self Radical Acceptance Self Observation

Book:How to Stay Sane

Source: How to Stay Sane

“Manchmal bedeutet authentisch zu sein, dass wir nicht so nett sind, wie wir gern wären. Wenn Ihnen das ein schlechtes Gewissen bereitet, denken Sie daran: Ein schlechtes Gewissen ist besser als Groll.”

Wise Words Emotions And Feelings

Book:The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *

Source: The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *

“You may find that you have been telling yourself that practicing optimism is a risk, as though, somehow, a positive attitude will invite disaster and so if you practice optimism it may increase your feelings of vulnerability. The trick is to increase your tolerance for vulnerable feelings, rather than avoid them altogether. […] Optimism does not mean continual happiness, glazed eyes and a fixed grin. When I talk about the desirability of optimism I do not mean that we should delude ourselves about reality. But practicing optimism does mean focusing more on the positive fall-out of an event than on the negative. … I am not advocating the kind of optimism that means you blow all your savings on a horse running at a hundred to one; I am talking about being optimistic enough to sow some seeds in the hope that some of them will germinate and grow into flowers.”

Optimism Vulnerability

Book:How to Stay Sane

Source: How to Stay Sane

“Change happens, if it needs to, when we become aware of what we are, not when we try to become what we are not.”

Self Change Mindfulness Self Improvement Self Awareness Emotional Health Calming The Mind

Book:How to Stay Sane

Source: How to Stay Sane

“Manche Menschen verwechseln Liebe mit etwas, das einen überkommt, dabei ist sie viel mehr. Liebe äußert sich in dem, was wir tun. Liebe ist nicht passiv.”

Love Inspirational True

Book:The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *

Source: The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *

“As we get older it is our short term memory that fades rather than our long term memory. Perhaps we have evolved like this so that we are able to tell the younger generation about the stories and experiences that have formed us which may be important to subsequent generations if they are to thrive.I worry though, about what might happen to our minds if most of the stories we hear are about greed, war, and atrocity”

Ifs Mind May Long Important War Stories Might Happens Able Term Memories Worry Generations Greed Long Term Thrive Fades Short Term Atrocities Younger Generation Short Term Memory

Book:How to Stay Sane

Source: How to Stay Sane

“Plasticity is an intrinsic property of the human brain and represents evolution's invention to enable the nervous system to escape the restrictions of its own genome and thus adapt to environmental pressures, physiologic changes, and experiences.”

Humans Brain Evolution Pressure Property Environmental Invention Nervous Restriction Human Brain Nervous System Genome Plasticity

Author:Philippa Perry

“It used to be thought that you stopped making new neural connections in your youth and from then on your brain was fixed and it was downhill all the way. But in fact as we know from our own experience we can keep on learning and learning means changing our brain on a physical level.”

Knows Way Mean Facts Used Levels Brain Youth Connections Used To Be Fixed

Author:Philippa Perry

“Neurogenesis continues throughout life and we have the capacity to establish new neural pathways and strengthen existing ones.”

Capacity Pathways

Author:Philippa Perry

“Our brains do not have to be fixed, they can be plastic.”

Brain Fixed Plastic

Author:Philippa Perry

“After a stroke we can re-learn how to talk, because by practicing we can establish different pathways in the brain, circumnavigating the damaged part.”

Different Brain Strokes Pathways

Author:Philippa Perry

“We don't have to have suffered brain damage to take advantage of the plastic nature of our brains.”

Brain Advantage Damage Plastic

Author:Philippa Perry

“Meditators are shown to have thickening in parts of the brain structure that deal with attention, memory and sensory functions. This was found to be more noticeable in older, more practiced meditators than in younger adults which is interesting because this structure usually tends to get thinner as we age.”

Age Found Memories Interesting Deals Attention Brain Adults Function Structure Sensory

Author:Philippa Perry

“Meditation is focused attention and the more we practise focusing our brains the more connections we build up.”

Attention Brain Meditation Connections Focused Practise Focused Attention

Author:Philippa Perry

“If we keep practicing mental skills it is likely we can strengthen neural connections and make new connections.”

Ifs Skills Connections

Author:Philippa Perry

“It seems whether we have a tendency towards being flexible or structured affects how we create, how we parent, how we work.”

Seems Parent Tendencies Flexible

Author:Philippa Perry

“The extreme of flexibility is chaos and the extreme of being structured is rigid and staying sane, or indeed using your creativity, is about being aware of these extremes and steering yourself to areas where you work best which usually tend to be more in the middle than at either extreme edge.”

Creativity Middle Areas Chaos Edges Extremes Staying Sane Flexibility Steering

Author:Philippa Perry

“Whether you plan or whether you flow in order to be creative probably isn't the point. The point is to keep practicing to maintain neural pathways and to establish new ones by learning new skills.”

Order Creative Plans Skills Flow Be Creative Pathways Learning New New Skills Learning New Skills

Author:Philippa Perry

“I think there is probably something evolutionary in that we are drawn to the easiest option. But in our age of convenience, cars, ready meals and off the peg mean that we are in danger of being mentally under stretched.”

Thinking Mean Age Car Danger Ready Meals Convenience Being Me And Off Peg

Author:Philippa Perry

“When we had to survive on our wits, gather and kill our food from scratch and be more at the mercy of our environment than we are today, we probably had enough challenge to keep our brains healthy.”

Enough Today Challenges Brain Environment Healthy Mercy Wit Scratches Our Environment Had Enough

Author:Philippa Perry

“If we are not using our brains' capacity for challenge it feels to me as though it atrophies like an unused muscle.”

Ifs Feels Challenges Brain Capacity Muscles Atrophy

Author:Philippa Perry

“A sense of achievement improves general confidence and self-esteem.”

Self Self Esteem Achievement Esteem

Author:Philippa Perry

“If someone is depressed they tend to retreat within the inner circle of their comfort zone which in the longer term, may contribute to exacerbating a problem rather than soothing it and if not seeking to expand the comfort zone becomes the norm.”

Ifs May Problem Term Comfort Seeking Circles Zone Comfort Zone Retreat Norm Soothing

Author:Philippa Perry

“The trouble is if we take no new steps to try a new challenge, our comfort zone doesn't seem just to stay still, but retract.”

Ifs Trying Stills Seems Challenges Steps Trouble Comfort Zone Comfort Zone New Challenges

Author:Philippa Perry

“Two brains are better than one. You've twice the brain capacity and you have two sets of experiences and genes to bring to any challenge.”

Two Challenges Brain Capacity Genes

Author:Philippa Perry

“There are probably times where the creative process is not helped by collaboration.”

Process Creative Collaboration Creative Process

Author:Philippa Perry

“Sometimes an artist's vision may get blurred when subjected to a committee because an artwork is usually an expression of something unconscious that is better left in the realm of one person's unconscious if it is to speak to another person's unconscious.”

Ifs May Persons Sometimes Artist Left Speak Vision Expression Realms Unconscious Committees Artwork

Author:Philippa Perry

“Beginning a new habit, or ending an old one can feel like letting go of a rope that swings a mile above the ground. So we feel reluctant to let go, after all, we've survived so far doing what we've done, why risk it.”

Feels Done Risk Habit Letting Go Miles Swings Survived Rope Reluctant Risk It New Habits

Author:Philippa Perry

“Our emotional map is laid down mainly in relationship with our earliest caregiver in the first couple of years of life.”

Years Firsts Emotional Couple Maps Caregivers Years Of Life

Author:Philippa Perry

“If we think of our brains as a map, those early roads are like grooves, tram tracks, easy to fall into.”

Ifs Thinking Fall Easy Brain Track Maps Groove Trams

Author:Philippa Perry

“People tend to slip up and go along the old road before they realise what they've done and climb out of it again.”

People Done Climbs Realising Slips

Author:Philippa Perry

“A relapse doesn't mean you'll never walk down the path you prefer. But I think relapses are almost an inevitable part of any course of self-development.”

Thinking Mean Self Courses Walks Path Development Inevitable Self Development Relapse

Author:Philippa Perry

“If you start from a position of I'm a no-hoper, in a paradoxical kind of way you are not risking being vulnerable.”

Ifs Way Kind Position Vulnerable Paradoxical

Author:Philippa Perry

“In order to stretch ourselves we do need to experience the vulnerability of not knowing the outcome.”

Needs Order Knowing Outcomes Vulnerability Not Knowing

Author:Philippa Perry

“I am talking about being optimistic enough to sow some seeds in the hope that some of them will germinate and grow into flowers.”

Enough Grows Talking Flower Seeds Optimistic Being Optimistic

Author:Philippa Perry

“We need to look at the repetitions in the stories we tell ourselves [and] at the process of the stories rather than merely their surface content. Then we can begin to experiment with changing the filter through which we look at the world, start to edit the story and thus regain flexibility where we have been getting stuck”

World Needs Looks Has Beens Stories Process Surface Stuck Experiments Repetition Flexibility Edits Filters

Author:Philippa Perry

About the Author

Born: November 1, 1957
Known for: Psychotherapist
Quotes: 36

Related Topics

Brain Ifs Challenges Capacity Connections May Mean Pathways Self Thinking

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

How to Stay SaneRelated source material

The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *Related source material

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