The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.
The strongest force in our universe is not overriding power, but love.
We live by a perceptual “map” which is never reality itself.
In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?
I believe that even our most abstract and philosophical views spring from an intensely personal base.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
When you are in psychological distress and someone really hears you without passing judgement on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good!
I am isolated. I sit in a glass ball, I see people through a glass wall. I scream, but they do not hear me.- Ellen West
I believe that individuals nowadays are probably more aware of their inner loneliness than has ever been true before in history.
I would prefer my experiences in communication to have a growth-promoting effect, both on me and on the other, and I should like to avoid those communication experiences in which both I and the other person feel diminished.
I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful.
The intolerant “true believer” is a menace to any field, yet I suspect each one of us finds traces of that person in ourself.
When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, “Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it’s like to be me
The paradigm of Western culture is that the essence of persons is dangerous; thus, they must be taught, guided and controlled by those with superior authority.
When the locus of evaluation is seen as residing in the expert, it would appear that the long-range social implications are in the direction of the social control of the many by the few.