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Family Dynamics Quotes

Browse 33 quotes about Family Dynamics.

Family Dynamics Quotes

“But partly it was my own professional background, my training in psychology, that rather than helping me—made it almost impossible for me to face what was happening. Back when I studied psychology in the 1950s, there was only one cause for all mental illnesses, even the most severe: a faulty upbringing. Everything was tied to the way you were raised. There were different schools of thought, of course. Some practitioners followed a Freudian model where understanding the id, the ego and the superego gave the answer to everything. Some followed Jung, with his emphasis on unconscious myths. But everyone believed that it was early life experiences that were behind mental disorders. A patient with serious mental problems had been subject at an early age to unacceptable pressures, to confusing messages, or to some destructive behavior on the part of the parents.”

WisdomPsychologyHuman NatureReflectionMental HealthParentingInsightChildhood TraumaFreudFamily Dynamics
Book:The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness
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“I'm sorry that I'm not Emily. But I was never supposed to be. Took me a while to learn that, and I hope you can see it too. I spent my whole life waiting because I was trying to live a future that was never mine. And I did it because I wanted you to be proud of me. To just once say “Good Job, Jet.” I needed it, lived for it, and I don't think that was healthy, for either of us.”

FamilyFamily DynamicsFamily IssuesHolly JacksonNot Quite Dead Yet
Book:Not Quite Dead Yet
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“To strip the wallpaper off the fairy tale of The Family House in which the comfort and happiness of men and children have been the priority is to find behind it an unthanked, unloved, neglected, exhausted woman. It requires skill, time, dedication and empathy to create a home that everyone enjoys and that functions well. Above all else, it is an act of immense generosity to be the architect of everyone else's well-being. This task is still mostly perceived as women's work. Consequently, there are all kinds of words used to belittle this huge endeavour.”

WomenFamilySacrificeMothersHouseworkHousekeepingFamily Dynamics
Book:The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography
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“Hero had the sense that Pol's Ilocano was stuck in time, that he only wanted to speak it with the people he'd always spoken it to, but even when Hero and Pol spoke in Ilocano with each other in California, there was a playacting stiffness in their voices that hadn't been there back in Vigan, when Hero used to hang on every word.”

LanguageImmigrationFilipinoImmigrant ExperienceFamily DynamicsFilipino AuthorsFilipino CultureIntergenerational Relations
Book:America Is Not the Heart
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“When she notices my silence she goes quiet and sighs. I guess she, too, gets fed up with the weight of incomprehension. I guess that on top of seeming like a sister who is detached, dejected and discourteous, I also come off as an arrogant person. Kinship isn't enough for her, either, of course it isn't. In cases like ours, getting along isn't a question of magic or chemistry or affinity, but of tenacity, toughness and torturous toiling.”

Family RelationshipsSisterhoodSiblingsKinshipPersonalitiesFamily DynamicsHuman Complexity
Book:La encomienda
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“You know now how deeply unhappy your mother was, and you also know that in his own fumbling way your father loved her, that is, to the extent he was capable of loving anyone, but they made a botch of it, and to be a part of that disaster when you were a boy no doubt drove you inward, turning you into a man who has spent the better part of his life sitting alone in a room.”

WritersWriters On WritingFamily ProblemsFamily DynamicsAutobiographical
Book:Report from the Interior
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“We need to engage with the family for deeper insight into the dysfunctions and dynamics that led to a decision to make permanent body changes with surgery. Taking the easy route of writing a prescription for testosterone after one or two short visits, instead of careful evaluation and exploration, is woefully inadequate.”

Health Care ReformFamily DynamicsDo No HarmGender ConfusionIrreversible DamageFamily DysfunctionRoot Cause Of ProblemsProtection Of ChildrenHormone TherapyParental Worries
Book:The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology
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“I want to love him but I often find myself wishing he could just be an asshole all the time. This way I wouldn't have all these inner battles with myself. I learn to navigate my way through shattered expectations and constant disappointments by putting an impenetrable wall up between us. Every time I let my guard down, I'm quickly reminded why my defenses were up in the first place. It's nearly impossible for me to flourish in an inconsistent hostile environment, especially when my own growth is so intertwined with his. I'm forced to face the unsettling reality that the people who are supposed to protect us are sometimes the same people we need protection from.”

AutobiographyToxic RelationshipsFamily DynamicsParent And Child
Book:Down the Drain
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“She gave me breast and vaginal exams until I was seventeen years old. These 'exams' made my body stiff with discomfort. I felt violated, yet I had no voice, no ability to express that. I was conditioned to believe any boundary I wanted was a betrayal of her, so I stayed silent. Cooperative. When I was six years old, she pushed me into a career I didn't want. I'm grateful for the financial stability that career has provided me, but not much else. I was not equipped to handle the entertainment industry and all of its competitiveness, rejection, stakes, harsh realities, fame. I needed that time, those years, to develop as a child. To form my identity. To grow. I can never get those years back. She taught me an eating disorder when I was eleven years old--an eating disorder that robbed me of my joy and any amount of free-spiritedness that I had.”

ComplexityVoicelessFamily DynamicsLiving For Another
Book:I'm Glad My Mom Died
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“Lacking older siblings, the oldest or only child identifies primarily with her parents, conforming to their ideals and demands, not the least reason being that she no one with whom to share those demands. Since firstborns try to live up to the expectations of adults- teachers' as well as parents'- rather than that of peers, they are likely to learn more and to bring home better report cards than younger siblings. Thus firstborns pave the way for younger siblings, setting the standards against which they are measured and measure themselves. Middle children tend to be more gregarious and more dependent on the approval of peers than that of adults. For one thing they have the example of the older sibling- who has the credibility of generational sameness- to guide them in their decisions and to teach them the rules of the family road. An older sister who was grounded for a month for coming home late from a date, for instance, is a lesson not lost on her younger sister or brother. At the same time younger children are buffered by birth order from their parents' sole concentration. Hence they are treated with more indulgence and are called upon less to take on responsibilities.”

ParentingFamily DynamicsMiddle ChildFirst BornBirth OrderYoungest Sibling
Book:Women and Their Fathers: The Sexual and Romantic Impact of the First Man in Your Life
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“James was sixteen, Cam seventeen, perhaps. She had looked round for someone who was not there, for Mrs. Ramsay, presumably. But there was only kind Mrs. Beckwith turning over her sketches under the lamp. Then, being tired, her mind still rising and falling with the sea, the taste and smell that places have after long absence possessing her, the candles wavering in her eyes, she had lost herself and gone under. It was a wonderful night, starlit; the waves sounded as they went upstairs; the moon surprised them, enormous, pale, as they passed the staircase window. She had slept at once.”

WritingSleepGeniusImageryFamily DynamicsBrilliant Prose
Book:To the Lighthouse
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