The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred... in the psychic landscape.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must learn to differentiate between fears and anxieties. Fears are states of apprehension which focus on isolated and recogniza...ble dangers so that they may be judiciously appraised and realistically countered. Anxieties are diffuse states of tension (caused by a loss of mutual regulation and a consequent upset in libidinal and aggressive controls) which magnify and even cause the illusion of an outer danger, without pointing to appropriate avenues of defense or mastery. These two forms of apprehension obviously often occur together, and we can insist on a strict separation only for the sake of the present argument. If, in an economic depression, a man is afraid that he may lose his money, his fear may be justified. But if the idea of having to live on an income only ten times, instead of twenty-five times as large as that of his average fellow-citizen causes him to lose his nerve and to commit suicide, then we must consult our clinical formulas.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let us consider the polarity of love and hate.... Now, clinical observation shows not only that love is with unexpected regularity... accompanied by hate (ambivalence), and not only that in human relationships hate is frequently a forerunner of love, but also that in many circumstances hate changes into love and love into hate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
That primitive head So ambitiously vast,... Yet so rude in its art, Is as easily read For the woes of the past As a clinical chart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a character disorder, narcissism is the very opposite of strong self-love. Self-absorption does not produce gratification, it p...roduces injury to the self; erasing the line between self and other means that nothing new, nothing "other," ever enters the self; it is devoured and transformed until one thinks one can see oneself in the other--and then it becomes meaningless. This is why the clinical profile of narcissism is not of a state of activity, but of a state of being. There are erased the demarcations, limits, and forms of time as well as relationship. The narcissist is not hungry for experiences, he is hungry for Experience. Looking for an expression or reflection of himself in Experience, he devalues each particular interaction or scene, because it is never enough to encompass who he is. The myth of Narcissus neatly captures this: one drowns in the self--it is an entropic state.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the nineteenth century ... explanations of who and what women were focused primarily on reproductive events--marriage, children..., the empty nest, menopause. You could explain what was happening in a woman's life, it was believed, if you knew where she was in this reproductive cycle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The knowledge that for women in middle adulthood, multiple roles can tie in with well-being should help younger women who are stru...ggling with the pressures of small children and a job, and who may be tempted to abandon or severely curtail their career goals.... The woman who manages to hang onto her career may be in for some stress in her younger years when the pulls and tugs of family and career can be intense, but if she can persist, her chances for much smoother sailing in her mature years seem very good.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are seeing an increasing level of attacks on the "selfishness" of women. There are allegations that all kinds of social ills, f...rom runaway children to the neglected elderly, are due to the fact that women have left their "rightful" place in the home. Such arguments are simplistic and wrongheaded but women are especially vulnerable to the accusation that if society has problems, it's because women aren't nurturing enough.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mental health data from the 1950's on middle-aged women showed them to be a particularly distressed group, vulnerable to depressio...n and feelings of uselessness. This isn't surprising. If society tells you that your main role is to be attractive to men and you are getting crow's feet, and to be a mother to children and yours are leaving home, no wonder you are distressed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »