The Choice

Carl Rogers, one of my most influential mentors, was a master of helping patients to fully accept themselves. Rogers theorized that when our need to self-actualize comes into conflict with our need for positive regard, or vice versa, we might choose to repress or hide or neglect our genuine personalities and desires. When we come to believe that th

I couldn’t let go of the conviction that I still hadn’t discovered what life expected from me.

“Forgiveness isn’t you forgiving your molester for what he did to you,” I told her. “It’s you forgiving the part of yourself that was victimized and letting go of all blame. If you are willing, I can help guide you to your freedom. It will be like going over a bridge. It’s scary to look down below. But I’ll be right here with you. What do you think

If you can steal a piece of bread from the guards, you are a hero, but if you steal from an inmate, you are disgraced, you die; competition and domination get you nowhere, cooperation is the name of the game; to survive is to transcend your own needs and commit yourself to someone or something outside yourself. For me, that someone is Magda, that s

Trying to be the caretaker who sees to another person’s every need is as problematic as avoiding your responsibility to yourself.

To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself. And to trust that there is enough, that you are enough.

This is why I find it useful to ask my patients, “What was your ticket of admission in your family?” (In my childhood, Klara was the prodigy, Magda was the rebel, and I was the confidante. I was most valuable to my parents when I was a listener, a container for their feelings, when I was invisible.) Sure enough, at the table Gretchen was shy, Peter

We’re free from the death camps, but we also must be free to—free to create, to make a life, to choose. And until we find our freedom to, we’re just spinning around in the same endless darkness.

To change our behavior, Ellis taught, we must change our feelings, and to change our feelings, we change our thoughts.