Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong. If a kid is having trouble or is discouraged, the problem is not just inside the kid; it's also in the system, the society.

As Plotinus tells us, we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belongs to its necessity.

A mother should have some fantasy about her child's future. It will increase her interest in the child, for one thing. To turn the fantasy into a program to make the child fly an airplane across the country, for example, isn't the point. That's the fulfillment of the parent's own dreams. That's different. Having a fantasy - which the child will either seek to fulfill or rebel against furiously - at least gives a child some expectation to meet or reject.

It is impossible to see the angel unless you first have a notion of it.

The word power has such a generally negative implication in our society. What are people talking about? Are they talking about muscles, or control?

Teachers today can't take to a child.

It's important to ask yourself, How am I useful to others? What do people want from me? That may very well reveal what you are here for.