Jeffrey A. Kottler > Quotes

“In addition to its role in facilitating change, conflict serves a number of other constructive functions—as a releaser of tension, a promoter of growth, a regulator of distance between people, a path to intimacy and to personal gain, and a preventer of stagnation. The intention here is not to convince you to go looking for opportunities to argue at every turn, but rather to help you realize that what makes fighting so intolerable is the belief that it serves no useful purpose. It is extremely important when you find yourself embroiled in controversy to ask yourself what functions the conflict is serving.”
― Jeffrey Kottler

“I also think that human behavior is so mysterious and unpredictable that if you are not humble about it you are bound to be insensitive to a lot of the dilemmas and predicaments that people are facing.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, Bad Therapy: Master Therapists Share Their Worst Failures

“What the client brings to us in a session is so overwhelming and so full of content and feeling that we can’t hold it all. So we have to find ways to live with that—to live with all this uncertainty, all this mystery, all this ambiguity. At the same time, our clients are demanding answers and solutions.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist

“We are playwrights in that we spontaneously compose and direct dialogue, acting out various roles of a nurturer, an authority, or a character from a client's life.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist

“human beings have an intense craving, often unfulfilled, to be understood by someone else.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist

“But what he meant is that we must always keep one foot in the client's world.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, Bad Therapy: Master Therapists Share Their Worst Failures

“Change usually begins with someone feeling a level of desperation that leads him or her to take constructive risks and experiment with alternative ways of being that previously felt inaccessible.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, Change: What Really Leads to Lasting Personal Transformation

“For those who are doing distance therapy, we are missing essential data and cues that were previously available to us: a client’s posture, scent, what the hands and feet are doing, where the person sits in the room, or who else is listening to the session. In addition, some of the most crucial parts of therapeutic change used to take place during the commute to and from sessions when clients would review and rehearse what they wanted to talk about, as well as the kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings, and reactions that took place on the trip home.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being A Therapist

“The most influential author for me is Teilhard de Chardin, the French anthropologist and theologian. He believed, as I do, that the world is evolving toward a pleroma or fullness. Each human act contributes to this grand evolution and therefore does not cease to exist when it is completed.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Master Therapist: Practicing What You Preach

“The therapist’s job is to do everything in her power not just to promote self-understanding but to encourage experimentation.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist

“We are offered glimpses, even deep searches, into the questions that haunt people the most. We experience a level of intimacy with our clients that few will ever know. We are exposed to levels of drama and emotional arousal that are at once terrifying and captivating. We get to play detective and help solve mysteries that have plagued people throughout their lives. We hear stories so amazing that they make television shows, novels, and movies seem tedious and predictable by comparison. We become companions to people who are on the verge of making significant changes— and we are transformed as well. We go to sleep at night knowing that, in some way, we have made a difference in people’s lives. There is almost a spiritual transcendence associated with much of the work we do.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist

“The Japanese word seiki is also a way of pointing to this vitality of presence. Carl Whitaker hinted at it when he said therapy was as good as the goodness of the therapist. Though his words are easy to misunderstand, they imply a truth: “I found seiki at the heart of most healing traditions.” Keeney is referring to his decade-long journey around the world, studying with the most accomplished healers in southern Africa, Latin America, South Asia, among the aborigines of Australia, and to many other far-flung places that hold ancient practices. He finds it more than a little amusing that in the culture of therapy we are so obsessed with things that matter so little to others around the world. “I have learned that one’s model or protocols matter not at all and that evidence-based therapy is a gambler’s way of pulling the authority card. If you have seiki, or a powerful life force, then any model will come to life. Without it, the session will be dead and incapable of transformation.” Keeney finds it challenging, if not frustrating, to try to explain this idea to those who don’t speak this language. “I guess if you have seiki or n/om, you feel what I am talking about; if you don’t, no words will matter. The extent to which you feel, smell, taste, hear, and see this vitality is a measure of how much mastery there is in your practice and everyday life.” We believe it is an illusion that master therapists truly understand what therapy is all about and how it works. The reality is that the process has many different dimensions and nuances that we never really grasp. There are aspects that appear both mysterious and magical.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Master Therapist: Practicing What You Preach

“We are offered glimpses, even deep searches, into the questions that haunt people the most. We experience a level of intimacy with our clients that few will ever know. We are exposed to levels of drama and emotional arousal that are at once terrifying and captivating. We get to play detective and help solve mysteries that have plagued people throughout their lives. We hear stories so amazing that they make television shows, novels, and movies seem tedious and predictable by comparison. We be come companions to people who are on the verge of making significant changes— and we are transformed as well. We go to sleep at night knowing that, in some way, we have made a difference in people’s lives. There is al most a spiritual transcendence associated with much of the work we do.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being A Therapist

“When a person gives attention to unresolved issues of the past, she often must work through resistance and apprehensions. To dismantle rigid defenses, interpret unconscious motives, or reflect on unexplored feelings we must sometimes push the client to the brink of her patience and endurance. She must confront parts of herself that have been deeply buried, and she must risk the consequences of relinquishing coping strategies that have worked fairly well until this point, even with their side effects and collateral damage. There is a risk (or perhaps even a certainty) that some destabilization will occur. In order to attain real growth, the client must often be willing to experience intense confusion, disorientation, and discomfort. She leaves behind an obsolete image of herself, one that was once comfortable and familiar, and she risks not liking the person she will become. She will lose a part of herself that can never be recovered. She risks all this for the possibility of a better existence, and all she has to go on is the therapist’s word.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist

“In the absence of certainty about what is best, in the presence of someone who is needy and vulnerable, there is a compelling urge for us to do something.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist

“We thought back to previous research we'd been involved in with so-called difficult clients. One conclusion was that there really are no such things—all clients are really doing the best they can—just doing their jobs coping in the only way they know how.”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, Bad Therapy: Master Therapists Share Their Worst Failures

“For those who are doing distance therapy, we are missing essential data and cues that were previously available to us: a client’s posture, scent, what the hands and feet are doing, where the person sits in the room, or who else is listening to the session. In addition, some of the most crucial parts of therapeutic change used to take place during the commute to and from sessions when clients would review and rehearse what they wanted to talk about, as well as the kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings, and reactions that took place on the trip home”
― Jeffrey A. Kottler, On Being a Therapist