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1 " Persons Are Turned against Themselves Evil also turns a person against herself so that self is used against self. The case of the woman who received a dismissal letter from her pastor comes to mind again. The psychological decompensation she suffered was successfully used by her husband to intercede with a psychiatrist of his choosing to commit her to the mental unit of a hospital for an extended involuntary stay, which further worsened her condition. Additional examples abound. Some patients report cults using induced hypnotic states to encourage a subject's dissociated hands and arms to do something hurtful to someone else. In such cases, the subject is encouraged to watch the hand that is hers but not hers (because it is dissociated from her). The end result is often extreme guilt. self-loathing, and distrust of one's self and motives.An incestuous parent may use a child's own natural bodily responses to repeated sexual stimulation to make the point that the child really " wants and enjoys“ what is being forced upon her. "
2 " It is naturally a sign of inner liberation when a patient can squarely recognize his difficulties and take them with a grain of humor. But some patients at the beginning of analysis make incessant jokes about themselves, or exaggerate their difficulties in so dramatic a way that they will appear funny, while they are at the same time absurdly sensitive to any criticism. In these instances humor is used to take the sting out of an otherwise unbearable shame. "
― Karen Horney , Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization
3 " The uncomfortable, as well as the miraculous, fact about the human mind is how it varies from individual to individual. The process of treatment can therefore be long and complicated. Finding the right balance of drugs, whether lithium salts, anti-psychotics, SSRIs or other kinds of treatment can be a very hit or miss heuristic process requiring great patience and classy, caring doctoring. Some patients would rather reject the chemical path and look for ways of using diet, exercise and talk-therapy. For some the condition is so bad that ECT is indicated. One of my best friends regularly goes to a clinic for doses of electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment looked on by many as a kind of horrific torture that isn’t even understood by those who administer it. This friend of mine is just about one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and she says, “I know. It ought to be wrong. But it works. It makes me feel better. I sometimes forget my own name, but it makes me happier. It’s the only thing that works.” For her. Lord knows, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t understand the brain or the mind anything like enough to presume to judge or know better than any other semi-informed individual, but if it works for her…. well then, it works for her. Which is not to say that it will work for you, for me or for others. "
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4 " Riding high and above the waves on extemporaneous notions of an afterlife, Michael brought one foot forward and let it dangle over the roof’s edge. He knew that he did not have much time before the other would follow. Some patients below could see the figure atop the building fromthe courtyard. They started to rile with anticipation, their irate murmurings incomprehensible. Agroundskeeper looked up to see what justified the commotion. Michael could hear the shoutsfrom below. He almost toppled when the wind picked up again, but recovered and kept one footdangling with the other anchored to the roof. The hoots came louder now, almost calling himtoward them like sirens guiding ships in the night. From below it was impossible to make out theface of the balancing figurine now poised in suspended descent. Another gust came. He closedhis eyes, felt the levity manifesting, and felt the complete freedom inside. He could feel himselfgliding down like the sail of a weightless craft, forever plunging into the great beyond, belowwhere mermaids sing and summon their lovers home, further down into the depths of somecomplacent serenity, further down where thoughts float away and never return and the lightnessis so grand that there is no other worldly place imaginable, for there is no world left to beconsidered. There is only the soul, free from the prison of the body, and it is released to travelanother millennium through time, carrying with it the progress and industry gathered from themind previously occupied. The time it spans inconceivable. He let his other foot go from the roofand felt himself completely let go. "
― Matthew Chase Stroud , Paths of Young Men