Erving Polster famous quotes

Therapy is too good to be limited to the sick.
-- Erving Polster

#Sick #Therapy

We want to hear the story first and let the meaning unfold, rather than to be present with expectations of a certain significance into which all behavior is then fitted.
-- Erving Polster

#Expectations #Stories #Want

The paradox is that, while a concern with past and future is obviously central to psychological functioning, to behave as though one were indeed in the past or future, as many do, pollutes the lively possibilities of existence.
-- Erving Polster

#Past #Psychological #Paradox

Fascination is a key to productivity; it unites experiences; it is even its own reward.
-- Erving Polster

#Keys #Fascination #Rewards

Theory and knowledge remain suspect, not because of inherent worthlessness, but because of their historic isolation from action. Without theoretical orientation, however, action is vulnerable to oversimplified and glib imitativeness-even mimicry-and to the use of the gimmick.
-- Erving Polster

#Gimmicks #Mimicry #Use

When a person has swum, traveled, run a lathe, planted flowers, ridden a motorcycle, made wine, painted a picture, parachuted, he has increased the fund from which he may draw for new figural developments. In other words, as the background of his experience becomes more diversified, it also becomes potentially more harmonious with a whole range of happenings.
-- Erving Polster

#Running #Flower #Wine

A new question for the psychotherapist to ask is whether a theory can go beyond mere effectiveness in achieving either a so-called cure or even personal growth into its implications for the nature of an evolving society.
-- Erving Polster

#Effectiveness #Growth #Achieve

If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly.

If I'm two pounds heavier, I'm fat. If I'm skinnier, I'm sick. It's ridiculous. And that's not coming from agents or designers.

I go to bed at 2 a.m. and get up at 7 a.m. - I've never been a sleeper. But I definitely get sick every month-and-a-half.

Our hearts are breaking... We are lonely and deserted, sad and sick.

The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.

We may define therapy as a search for value.

Popular atheism is not a philosophy but a therapy,

People don't come to therapy for exclamation; they come for experience.

I have tried therapy a couple of times, but it hasn't worked.

If I went to someone for therapy, I wouldn't be a writer...I would just be well adjusted.