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Quote by Rollo May

“I would define mental health as the capacity to be aware of the gap between stimulus and response, together with the capacity to use this gap constructively.”

Quote by Rollo May

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Rollo May
Rollo May

Rollo May was an American psychologist born on April 21, 1909, and died on October 22, 1994. He was a significant figure in existential psychology and is considered one of the pioneers of the field. more

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“The seed of a mountain pine contains the whole future tree in a latent form; but each seed falls at a certain time onto a particular place, in which there are a number of special factors, such as the quality of the soil and the stones, the slope of the land, and its exposure to sun and wind. The latent totality of the pine in the seed reacts to these circumstances by avoiding the stones and inclining toward the sun, with the result that the tree’s growth is shaped. Thus an individual pine slowly comes into existence, constituting the fulfillment of its totality, its emergence into the realm of reality. Without the living tree, the image of the pine is only a possibility or an abstract idea. Again, the realization of this uniqueness in the individual man is the goal of the process of individuation.”

“[...] this observing self often kills and withers anything that is under its scrutiny. The individual has now a persecuting observer in the very core of his being. It may be that the child becomes possessed by the alien and destructive presence of the observer who has turned bad in his absence, occupying the place of the observing self, of the boy himself outside the mirror. If this happens, he retains his awareness of himself as an object in the eyes of another by observing himself as the other: he lends the other his eyes in order that he may continue to be seen; he then becomes an object in his own eyes. But the part of himself who looks into him and sees him, has developed the persecutory features he has come to feel the real person outside him to have. [Self-consciousness, Freyd]”

“For some people that's money, for others God itself, for others their families, or fame. If you talk to people for long enough and do a little bit of probing, you'll find out what's sacred to them. That thing which they truly unironically believe in, which they believe pushes the world forward and gives their life meaning. That's their religion. You find with absolutely every person that there has to be something there in their soul and that it unironically completely controls their life.”