Psychopathology Quotes

• The psychopathology of the masses is rooted in the psychology of the individual

  Carl Jung

  Psychology, Individual, Mass

  Carl Gustav Jung (1964). “Civilization in transition”

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• The advanced societies of the future will not be governed by reason. They will be driven by irrationality, by competing systems of psychopathology.

  J. G. Ballard

  Reason, Driven, Competing

  "J.G. Ballard Quotes: Does the Future Have a Future?". Book edited by V. Vale and Mike Ryan, 2004.

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• It's not psychopathology that counts. It's what you do with it.

  Anthony Storr

  Attitude, Cancer, Positive Thinking

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• For the sake of my children and grandchildren, I hope that the human talent for self-destruction can be successfully controlled, or at least channelled into productive forms, but I doubt it. I think we are moving into extremely volatile and dangerous times, as modern electronic technologies give mankind almost unlimited powers to play with its own psychopathology as a game.

  J. G. Ballard

  Children, Moving, Technology

  "JG Ballard: Theatre of Cruelty". Interview with Jean-Paul Coillard, 1998.

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• What we call 'normal' in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don't even notice it ordinarily.

  Abraham Maslow

  Average, Psychology, Normal

  Abraham H. Maslow (2013). “Toward a Psychology of Being”, p.26, Simon and Schuster

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• Let people realize clearly that every time they threaten someone or humiliate or unnecessarily hurt or dominate or reject another human being, they become forces for the creation of psychopathology, even if these be small forces. Let them recognize that every person who is kind, helpful, decent, psychologically democratic, affectionate, and warm, is a psychotheraputic force, even though a small one.

  Abraham Maslow

  Hurt, People, Helpful

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• The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.

  Erich Fromm

  Errors, People, Facts

  Erich Fromm (2014). “The Erich Fromm Reader: Readings Selected and Edited by Rainer Funk”, p.74, Open Road Media

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• It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes suicide; and certainly no one knows all, or perhaps even most, of the motivations behind the killing of the self. But psychopathology is almost always there, and its deadliness is fierce. Love, success, and friendship are not always enough to counter the pain and destructiveness of severe mental illness

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Suicide, Pain, Motivation

  FaceBook post by Kay Redfield Jamison from Feb 18, 2013

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• If they can't learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn.

  Ole Ivar Lovaas

  Inspiring, Education, Teacher

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• Despair is the central part of the psychopathology. For the handmaiden of gossip is treachery.

  Alexander Cockburn

  Gossip, Despair, Treachery

  Alexander Cockburn (1988). “Corruptions of Empire: Life Studies & the Reagan Era”, p.185, Verso

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• ...Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents.

  Don Kates

  Gun, Law, People

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• To one completely committed to this realm of becoming, as are the empiricists, the claim to apprehend verities is a sign of psychopathology. Probably we have here but a highly sophisticated expression of the doctrine that ideals are hallucination and that the only normal, sane person is the healthy extrovert, making instant, instinctive adjustments to the stimuli of the material world.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Expression, Healthy, Becoming

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.137, University of Chicago Press

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• He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Often Is, Secret, Tails

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• Anger is generally seen as an unwelcome presence in our midst, however natural it may be. Although each person, and each society, is charged with how anger is to be appropriately channeled, the denial of anger, or its continuous repression, is a deep source of our psychopathology and will invariably seek its expression in a less healthful fashion.

  James Hollis

  Fashion, Anger, Expression

  James Hollis (2008). “Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves”, p.48, Penguin

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