If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.

The Anatomy of Conflict:If there is no communication then there is no respect. If there is no respect then there is no caring. If there is no caring then there is no understanding. If there is no understanding then there is no compassion. If there is no compassion then there is no empathy. If there is no empathy then there is no forgiveness. If there is no forgiveness then there is no kindness. If there is no kindness then there is no honesty. If there is no honesty then there is no love. If there is no love then God doesn't reside there. If God doesn't reside there then there is no peace. If there is no peace then there is no happiness. If there is no happiness ----then there IS CONFLICT BECAUSE THERE IS NO COMMUNICATION!

Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.

The world’s greatest achievers have been those who have always stayed focussed on their goals and have been consistent in their efforts.

Author says her father was so diplomatic that when people came to him for solutions, people not only accepted them, but they believed they thought of them.

Being divorced does not necessarily make one’s advice on marriage useless … or useful.

If you possess the character that you have in your daily lives, nobody can't forcefully change your personality unless you embrace their influence.

There’s nothing wrong with victims of any kind of abuse; they are perfectly normal. It is the ones that abuse others, who are not normal. It is they who have twisted minds and need to be corrected or counselled. Unfortunately people look down upon the abused victims as if they’ve done something wrong and make them feel ashamed as well as guilty- which is not fair and absolutely incorrect. Victims must be shown kindness, encouraged and rehabilitated at the earliest and those who abused them must be ostracized. If you have been the victim of any kind of abuse, take down those walls of guilt, don’t hide behind dark doors, face the light and take charge of your life. Seek support- if required. You must understand that you have done nothing wrong and must not feel guilty or have low self esteem of yourself; it is the one who has abused you who should be running for cover. All you need at this point of time is love, self love and lots of self confidence. Believe in yourself and have faith in your ability to bounce back.

Life is a purposeful action.

Perfectionists are not all negative, miserable, unhappy and over controlling individuals

Use fear as a counselor not a captor.

All children should be taught to unconditionally accept, approve, admire, appreciate, forgive, trust, and ultimately, love their own person.

All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out the changes that understanding creates in your heart.

Real comfort is found when I understand that I am held in the hollow of the hand of the One who created and rules all things. The most valuable thing in my life is God's love, a love that no one can take away. When my identity is rooted in him, the storms of trouble will not blow me away. This is the comfort we offer people. We don't comfort them by saying things will work out. They may not. The people around them may change, but they may not. The Bible tells us again and again that everything around us is in the process of being taken away. God and his love are all that remain as cultures and kingdoms rise and fall. Comfort is found by sinking our roots into the unseen reality of God's ever-faithful love.

Discovering an inner history requires listening – and often not to the first story told.

Jefferson determined the lodestar that lay hidden in the motivations of others

Good… Bad? I’m not here to judge where you’re at or where you’ve been. I’m simply here to encourage you in where you would like to go. You have the map; I’ll shine the light on it so you can better read it. And eventually, the sun will rise again in your life and you’ll no longer need my light to assist you.

We do not have to have the correct answers to listen well. In fact, often the correct answers are a hindrance to listening well, for we become more anxious to give the correct answer than to hear.

The bond of love must be kept strong.

The one trying to have the last word is rarely walking in the Word.

One last “happy” thought: Your marriage will end either in death or divorce. (Think about it!) So well before the “I do’s” (and the eventual tears), why not give both of yourselves a chance for a marriage that can be the best it can be?

An unresolved issue will be like a cancer with the potential to spread into other areas of your relationship, eroding the joy, lightness, love and beauty.

Love is divine force of existence.

Family therapists view the therapeutic relationship as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. Family therapists see beyond the problematic patterns in the family to the potential healing power of family relationships.

Families come into therapy with their own structure, and tone, and rules. Their organization, their pattern, has been established over years of living, and it is extremely meaningful and very painful for them. They would not be in therapy if they were happy with it. But however faulty, the family counts on the familiarity and predictability of their world. If they are going to turn loose this painful predictability and attempt to reorganize themselves, they need firm external support. The family crucible must has a shape, a form, a discipline of sorts, and the therapist has to provide it. The family has to know whether we can provide it, and so they test us.

The individual psychotherapy patient comes to the therapist with an almost automatic deference, a sense of dependence and compliance. The role pattern is old and established: the dependent child seeking guidance from a parent figure. There is no such traditional image for the family, no established pattern in which an entire family submits to the guidance of an individual. And the family structure is simply too powerful and too crucial for the members to go trustingly into an experience that threatens to change the entire matrix of their relationships. If the family therapist is to acquire that initial "authority figure" or "parent" role that is so necessary if therapy is to be more powerful than an ordinary social experience, he has to earn it.

Even though we were still waiting for Don, therapy was well begun. We were engaged in a subtle, often predictable, and very important contest with the family about who was going to be present at the meetings. Carl and I had revealed some of what our relationship had to offer: a good-humored liking for each other, an ability to cooperate, and an insistence on remaining ourselves. I was clearly not going to be the reverential assistant to the older man. And perhaps most important, Carl had intuitively modeled some of the process of therapy for the family. By sharing insight into his own personality, he was saying by demonstration, "It's important to search for you own unconscious agenda.

When Carl asked the Brices to bring their whole family to therapy, everyone in the family knew intuitively what that meant. Their whole world would be exposed: all its caring, its history, its anger, its anxiety. All in one place at once time, subject to the scrutiny and invasion of a stranger. And that was too much vulnerability. With its own unconscious wisdom, the family elected Don to stay home and test the therapists. Did we really mean everybody? Would we weaken and capitulate if they didn't bring Don?They had something to gain by the strategy. If we were hesitant and unconfident in our approach to their defiance, they would know that they could not trust us with the boiling cauldron of feeling which their family contained. If we were decisive and firm, they would guess that maybe we could handle the stresses which they intuitively knew had to be brought out into the open. One way or another, they had to find out how much power we had. In the meantime, they postponed facing that mysterious electricity, that critical mass, the whole family. Perhaps they thought they could be spared what Zorba called the full catastrophe.

It has been a long road for us as family therapists to reach an understanding of just this phenomenon-the sense of the whole, the family system. While we could have explained the theory of meeting with the whole family to the Brices, at that anxious moment it would not have touched them. There are situations where, in the words of Franz Alexander, the woice of the intellent is too soft. The family needed to test us. They needed the experience of our being firm. As unpleasant as it was, our response must have reassured them. They knew, and we sensed, how difficult their situation was and how tumultuous it could become. They simply has to know that we could withstand the stress if they dared open it up.

Have you ever noticed that fear affects your physical mind and body?

Infusing the cultural war with love, respect and empathy is the responsibility of every one who cares about the health and wellbeing of women, our families and communities, and our democracy.

Often, our misunderstandings about love are born in disruptive family relationships, where someone was either one-up or one-down to an extreme. There is an appropriate and necessary difference in the balance of power between parents and young children, but in the best situations, there should be no power struggles by the time those children have become adults - just deep connection, trust, and respect between people who sincerely care about each other.In disruptive families, children are taught to remain one-up or one-down into adulthood. And this produces immature adults who either seek to dominate others (one-up) or who allow themselves to be dominated (one-down) in their relationships - one powerful and one needy, one enabling and one addicted, one decisive and one confused.In relationships with these people, manipulation abounds. Especially when they start to feel out of control.

Teams that spend a lot of time learning the tricks of the trade will probably never really learn the trade.

Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.

Real loved one's aren't afraid, and will suggest to you, what's in your best interest because they wouldn't want too see you suffer the consequences of, sideways, emotional impulse(s). To see you crash and burn, time after time, is the gratification of 'yes folk' lurking in your corner. You may not agree, but always consider the voice(s) that have consistently kept it real.

Loss has no friend, no allies, no benefit to the human spirit.

As an individual, you are entitled to your time of grief, process of grief, and right to grieve.

There is no greater grief, than when a parent losses a child.

When a woman miscarries, the experience of the father is often forgotten. But men grieve pregnancy loss too...

A child's attachment process begins within the first year of life...

There is no debating that the effects of trauma experienced in childhood may have grave consequences.

Attachments that are not fostered may lend to the child's inability to properly attach or have no attachment at all.

Perception is a vice with which each person is capable of perceiving his or her reality.

I could go into their reality any time I chose to, but they could never come into mine. This is what I called 'helping' them.

Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.

Techniques are like tools: The more you have, the more options for getting a job done - but you have to know what you are building first.

In cases where treatment with medication is warranted, work on family interactions will help to reduce symptom severity and promote better functioning in the long run.

Be an informed advocate and support.

Toxic relationships are like a good pasta that has been overcooked.

Happiness is a choice and a state of mind.

Abuse may consist of physical maltreatment or language that is belittling, discriminatory...

Real happiness provides you the confidence that you never thought was obtainable.

Trauma may be endured through a physiological or psychological threat to life or overall wellbeing.

My traumatic experience was life changing

Survivors of trauma may have difficulty initiating relationships ...

Perception and worldview are one's summary of life.

In simple, the past is a time gone by and no longer exists in the present moment, but we choose to allow this past to occupy our minds, our bodies and our very existence.

The loss of a child exploits the emotions of each individual it encounters.

Letting go of the past, is like opening the flood gates of healing to be set free.

The benefits of forgiveness are limitless.

An anchor should be someone who is personally open and willing to communicate.

Allow yourself to be an anchor and anchored by others.

The loss of my child broke my spirit.

When those you love die, the best you can do is honor their spirit for as long as you live. You make a commitment that you’re going to take whatever lesson that person or animal was trying to teach you, and you make it true in your own life… it’s a positive way to keep their spirit alive in the world, by keeping it alive in yourself.

All you need is one safe anchor to keep you grounded when the rest of your life spins out of control

For example, in order to identify these schemas or clarify faulty relational expectations, therapists working from an object relations, attachment, or cognitive behavioral framework often ask themselves (and their clients) questions like these: 1. What does the client tend to want from me or others? (For example, clients who repeatedly were ignored, dismissed, or even rejected might wish to be responded to emotionally, reached out to when they have a problem, or to be taken seriously when they express a concern.) 2. What does the client usually expect from others? (Different clients might expect others to diminish or compete with them, to take advantage and try to exploit them, or to admire and idealize them as special.) 3. What is the client’s experience of self in relationship to others? (For example, they might think of themselves as being unimportant or unwanted, burdensome to others, or responsible for handling everything.) 4. What are the emotional reactions that keep recurring? (In relationships, the client may repeatedly find himself feeling insecure or worried, self-conscious or ashamed, or—for those who have enjoyed better developmental experiences—perhaps confident and appreciated.) 5. As a result of these core beliefs, what are the client’s interpersonal strategies for coping with his relational problems? (Common strategies include seeking approval or trying to please others, complying and going along with what others want them to do, emotionally disengaging or physically withdrawing from others, or trying to dominate others through intimidation or control others via criticism and disapproval.) 6. Finally, what kind of reactions do these interpersonal styles tend to elicit from the therapist and others? (For example, when interacting together, others often may feel boredom, disinterest, or irritation; a press to rescue or take care of them in some way; or a helpless feeling that no matter how hard we try, whatever we do to help disappoints them and fails to meet their need.)

Psychotherapy isn't a twentieth-century artifice imposed on nature, but the reinstatement of a natural healing process.

Healing doesn’t mean forgetting or making the memories insignificant. Healing means refocusing

Respect your needs and limitations as you work through your grief and begin to heal

Unfortunately, there is no expiration date on grief

Perfectionism is adaptive if you are mindful of your humanhood.

Although the client-centered approach had its origin purely within the limits of the psychological clinic, it is proving to have implications, often of a startling nature, for very diverse fields of effort.

Should you operate upon your clients as objects, you risk reducing them to less than human. Following the culture of appropriation and mastery your clients become a kind of extension of yourself, of your ego. In the appropriation and objectification mode, your clients’ well-being and success in treatment reflect well upon you. You “did” something to them, you made them well. You acted upon them and can take the credit for successful therapy or treatment. Conversely, if your clients flounder or regress, that reflects poorly on you. On this side of things the culture of appropriation and mastery says that you are not doing enough. You are not exerting enough influence, technique or therapeutic force. What anxiety this can breed for some clinicians! DBT offers a framework and tools for a treatment that allows clients to retain their full humanity. Through the practice of mindfulness, you can learn to cultivate a fuller presence to the moments of your life, and even with your clients and your work with them. This presence potentiates an encounter between two irreducible human beings, meeting professionally, of course, and meeting humanly. The dialectical framework, which embraces contradictions and gives you a way of seeing that life is pregnant with creative tensions, allows for your discovery of your limits and possibilities, gives you a way of seeing the dynamic nature of reality that is anything but sitting still; shows you that your identity grows from relationship with others, including those you help, that you are an irreducible human being encountering other irreducible human beings who exert influence upon you, even as you exert your own upon them. Even without clinical contrivance.

In populations experiencing trauma across a wide variety of settings, the portion of those experiencing ongoing PTSD is remarkably similar – one third. Ecclesiastes says woe to him who falls alone, but that the cord of THREE strands is not easily broken. Apparently deep in our human wiring is the resilience to be a buttress for those feeling overcome.

You have the chief spark of your health's fire, for you have true knowledge of the hand that guides the universe.

I've had a lot of therapists, so I've had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I've faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

Ed Welch says that all counseling is a variation on a single theme: knowing and praying for the counselee. Of all the questions the counselor might ask, then, the central guiding question in the counselor's mind is, "How can I pray for you?

The separation of truth from reason is a dangerous game. I think ideas have to sink very deeply into a person's soul, into their being, before they can effect change.

We have been together for 40 years, married for 36. There have been three times in our relationship when we were unable to resolve an issue on our own. We used all the skill that we have and yet it was still unresolved. In those three times we sought professional help because there was a blind spot for each of us. The therapist was able to listen to both of us and help us come to a place of resolution that we both felt good about. I feel very grateful for that help. Most times we have been able to work things through on our own. Sometimes we can clear the issue in a matter of a few minutes, sometimes an hour and sometimes it can take several days. But we still keep working on it until we both say that we feel complete, we understand our own part and responsibility in the issue rather than simply blaming each other, are willing to go on, and there is an even deeper connection and sometimes even humor to the situation. In working each issue through to completion we have been able to retain a beautiful lightness in our relationship that we both cherish.

Loss is only temporary when you believe in God!

God can make good use of all that happens, but the loss is real.

Alex had cooked, and coaxed, and helped Mark form borders around the shapeless days. Alex had given meaning to the word "servant".

It is not rubbish! It is the part of people that you do not understand.

The word 'survivor' carries a weight of remembrance that has broken the minds and bodies of more than a few men and women. It also contains a humbling light of recognition that compels many to do whatever they can to help reinforce the efforts of those who might be 'at risk' of not just giving up on their dreams, but of giving up on their continued existence.

When emotions turn and stay sour, when thoughts become cynical and judgmental, good and compassionate treatment is on the line. Helpers who become sour and cynical tend to begrudge their high need clients for their neediness. There is a risk that helpers become too well-practiced at taking a bleak view of those they have avowed to assist. There is a temptation to begin to blame clients for their failure to improve. If treatment ends pre-maturely, with either a client never returning to treatment or a helper 'firing' them out of frustration, there is a tendency for the client to take the fall. Of course what we are talking about here are signs of burnout.

I'd always follow Nixon's orders, but you can't order somebody to be happy.

Sacramental listening reminds us that current suffering isn’t the end of the story. God loves us deeply, and the vision for the future is vaster and more magnificent than we could ever imagine. In these moments of profound human presence, we are awakened to the divine presence and see that the kingdom of God is coming and yet is already here.

The malpractice for advice-giving is like five times as much as a craniotomy.

The benefit of personal growth and self-discovery is that we become better human beings with the strength to endure and carry on, and then we may experience something magical when we begin to reach out to others. We discover a feeling that is so rewarding and fulfilling: that fact that we can make a difference. Here is to your willingness to begin with making a difference with yourself!Michael James

Abuse? Ah. Such problems, even with time, do not go away on their own. They must be addressed. André Chevalier

To take such a complex creature, on who was meant for God and is destroyed by sin, and attempt to understand how the development of that creature can be affected by hideous trauma is to attempt the impossible.

Being Scared-off by EvilLastly, we deny the presence of evil because we are terrified by the horrendously hurtful, cruel, and bloody kinds of evil people tell us about—if we are willing to listen. This was poignantly brought home during an interdisciplinary case conference involving a resident who was counseling for the first time a woman who had been sexually abused. As we worked with him, it became clear that he was resisting entering what he called the 'psychic cave" of her sealed—off experience from which she was shouting for assistance. Because of his resistance, he was not providing her the support and guidance she so desperately needed, and he was not facilitating her working through the abuse and hurt that were continuing to impact her life. As he was confronted about this at one point in the conference, he stated tearfully: "I'm afraid if I help her move into her memories. I will have to go with her, and if I go with her, my view of the world as a basically good and safe place will be shattered. I'm not sure I can handle that for myself, or be able to think about the fact that my wife and kids may be more vulnerable living in this world than I can be comfortable believing" (Means 1995, 299).

The biblical counselor must always remember that the ROOT problem is deeper than skin; it is sin. The ultimate cure is not culture, but Christ.

The mouth tastes food, the heart tastes words.

Deanna's job (as counselor) is to keep us from deluding ourselves.

Author has developed a routine of daily emotional debriefing with his kids as he tucks them in at night. To encourage the habit of keeping uncluttered, open heart, he starts with basic questions asking whether anyone has hurt them or made them angry to help them process at an age-appropriate depth. As they mature, he will add questions.

soon he’ll reach for her because she’s beautiful, and she’s his wife. If she cringes away from him because you’ve convinced her he isn’t good enough for her, how will that make him feel? If she submits to him out of obligation, how will that make her feel?What if she approaches him and later is ashamed of wanting her own husband because he isn’t good enough for her? It’ll be hard for a marriage to last under those conditions. This isn’t what you want for Susan. Forgive him. Accept him. You’ll be doing your daughter a favor.

Part of the genius of (Nick) Sabin's system was that he understood that no matter the skill set, he was inheriting vulnerable kids from various backgrounds. For those times when they made poor decisions, as they invariably did, the safety net must be strong as far and wide as possible.

When is a train most free? Is it when it goes bouncing across the field off the track? No. It is free only when it is confined (if you will) to the track. Then it runs smoothly and efficiently, because that was the way that its maker intended for it to run. It needs to be on the track, structured by the track, to run properly. You too need to be on the track. God's track is found in God's Word.

their anxiety, justified or not, was genuine,

The actions and emotional responses of others are not your responsibility. You cannot rescue people from themselves. This is for them to do. — André Chevalier

Someone mentioned therapy to me once. I read a book instead. ~ Drew Stirling

If you ask an Irishman for directions, he might be quick to answer, Well if I were going there, I would not start here.

One must always forgive another's passion.

In the reflected gaze of his (her husband's) steady admiration, she saw the face of the girl he had fallen in love with.

Almost everything I've done is technically wrong, but Paul never mentioned the mistakes, only the corrective measures.

A mentoring nurse to new doctors: "Check your own pulse first.

You're so haunted by other people's futures that you forget, the only future you cannot see is your own.

failure is costly, both to society and to individuals. Pretending that all people are equal in their abilities will not change the fact that a person with an average IQ is unlikely to become a theoretical physicist, or the fact that a person with a low level of music ability is unlikely to become a concert pianist. It makes more sense to pay attention to people’s abilities and their likelihood of achieving certain goals, so people can make good decisions about the goals they want to spend their time, money, and energy pursuing

Dost thou want another eye beside that of Him who sees every secret thing?

This is one of the difficulties and pleasures of studying the Inklings; Christians all, they offer, along with the expected 20th-century psychological explanations for behavior, unexpected spiritual ones.

Will therapy make you feel any better? Not if it's working.

There is an inverse relationship between control and trust. Trust is more of a two-way exchange than most people, especially those in power, realize. Leaders in government, news media, universities, and corporations think they can own trust, when, of course, trust is given to them. Trust is earned with difficulty and lost with ease. When those institutions treat constituents like masses of fools, children, miscreants,or prisoners, when they simply don't listen,it's unlikely they will engender warm feelings of mutual respect. Trust is an act of opening up. It's a mutual relationship of transparency and sharing. The more ways you find to reveal yourself and listen to others, the more you will build trust, which is your brand.

You cannot contain evil by shaming it, or making people feel guilty, but only by revealing it toward it is, and then seeing the good as better.

Treat this crisis as practice for the next crisis.

Facing one’s past can be a perilous activity. For the client, joy must exceed misery. Personal successes must far outweigh losses. Pleasure must exceed pain. Always. Always. To do otherwise is a failure of the counselor.— André Chevalier

most of us can only deny short-term pleasures because we see a realistic path between self-denial now and something better down the road.

When a person in your life continuously displays to you they do not care, there comes a point where you may want to start believing them.

However, if you do not believe your clients, they may sense your doubt and never fully trust you. As Bruce Goderez (1986), director of a PTSD inpatient unit says, "It is important for the clinician and counselor to be willing to be made a fool." In other words, it is better that you believe a client who is lying or distorting the truth than to disbelieve a hurting trauma survivor who may never seek help again if your attitude is one of disbelief or disdain. Even if that client were to continue in therapy, they would never fully trust you.

Paul didn't just see emotions. He saw the need they represented.

I could help you,” I said. “Counseling, drugs, a religious advisor, a girlfriend.

We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—hourly and daily. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the task which it constantly sets for each individual.

As you may already know, post-traumatic stress disorder is extremely complex. Each client has a unique, perhaps virtually unbelievable, set of experiences, and an almost equally set of reactions to those experiences.

It turns out that up to 35 percent of people with bipolar disorder also have ADHD.

The counselor says that with more time and more surgeries, I will begin to feel normal again. She says this with a mouth that can still smile. It’s so easy to be reassuring when you have lips.

I found that the same softness which once made me a target now compelled people to trust me with their stories.

A skilled listener can help people tap into their own wisdom.

I have frequently thought to myself, 'If I can teach my daughter one thing, it will be the love of self unconditionally.' Unconditional love and peace are obtainable, but they are only obtainable if I can learn to move beyond the conditions that I placed on my life. When conditions are placed on my life and on the lives of others, they ensure that I will never experience the depths of love and happiness.

God is the greatest nurturer of all.