[O]ne of the greatest difficulties encountered in bringing about favorable change is this almost inescapable illusion that there is a perduring, unique, simple existent self, [which is] in some strange fashion, the patient's, or the subject person's, private property.

There is no fun in psychiatry. If you try to get fun out of it, you pay a considerable price for your unjustifiable optimism.

The psychiatric interviewer is supposed to be doing three things: considering what the patient could mean by what he says; considering how he himself can best phrase what he wishes to communicate to the patient; and, at the same time, observing the general pattern of the events being communicated. In addition to that, to make notes which will be of more than evocative value, or come anywhere near being a verbatim record of what is said, in my opinion is beyond the capacity of most human beings.

When people approach you angrily, you take them very seriously, and, if you're like me, with the faint suggestion that you can be angry too, and that you would like to know what the shooting is about

What I am, at any given moment in the process of my becoming a person, will be determined by my relationships with those who love me or refuse to love me, with those whom I love or refuse to love.

It may be possible through detachment, to gain knowledge that is 'useful;' but only through participation is it possible to gain the knowledge that is helpful.

[O]ne of the greatest difficulties encountered in bringing about favorable change is this almost inescapable illusion that there is a perduring, unique, simple existent self, [which is] in some strange fashion, the patient's, or the subject person's, private property.