It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
Depression is rage spread thin.
Interpretation
Depression can be seen as suppressed anger or frustration that is not fully expressed.
George Santayana's quote suggests that depression is not merely a feeling of sadness, but rather a manifestation of unresolved anger or rage that has become diffused and unmanageable. This perspective emphasizes the importance of addressing underlying emotions rather than simply treating the symptoms of depression, as it can provide insight into the mental health struggles that individuals face.
In practice
During a mental health seminar to illustrate the complexity of depression.
It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.
The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best chosen words.
I believe that the therapist's function should be to help people become free to be aware of and to experience their possibilities.
Everyone knows nowadays that people 'have complexes'. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.
If we think about emotion this way - as outside-in, not inside out - it is possible to understand how some people can have an enormous amount of influence over others. Some of us, after all, are very good at expressiing emotions and feelings, which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.
People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.
The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can be normally unhappy.
In the investigation of a neurotic style of life, we must always suspect an opponent, and note who suffers most because of the patient's condition. Usually this is a member of the family.
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