Tom Butler-Bowdon Quotes

It is a myth that there is one “creative personality.” Something all creative people seem to share is complexity — they “tend to bring the entire range of human possibilities within themselves.

we all need a personal theory of what makes people tick.

Prior to the 1980s, David Burns writes, depression had been the cancer of the psychological world — widespread but difficult to treat — and the taboos associated with it made the problem worse for most people.

Cognitive therapy’s revolutionary idea is that depression is not an emotional disorder. The bad feelings we have in depression all stem from negative thoughts, therefore treatment must be about challenging and changing those thoughts.

The science of human nature… finds itself today in the position that chemistry occupied in the days of alchemy.” Alfred Adler

most of us can literally “choose” to be happy, if we understand the mind’s thought–emotion mechanism.

Character” is the unique interplay between two opposing forces: a need for power, or personal aggrandizement; and a need for “social feeling” and togetherness (in German, Gemeinschaftsgefühl).

Burns lists ten “cognitive distortions,” such as all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, and giving ourselves labels. By understanding these distortions, we are led to the awareness that “feelings aren’t facts,” they are only mirrors of our thoughts.

If Adler’s theory of human action relates to power, concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl’s brand of existential psychology, “logotherapy,” posits that the human species is uniquely made to seek meaning.

Truly creative people work for work’s own sake, and if they make a public discovery or become famous that is a bonus.

This work led cognitive therapists such as Aaron Beck, David D. Burns, and Albert Ellis to build treatment around the idea that our thoughts shape our emotions, not the other way around. By changing our thinking, we can alleviate depression or simply have greater control over our behavior.

Honesty, which seems “old-fashioned” to the fast crowd, is the basis of all enduring success, since it brings with it knowledge of the self.

Barry Schwartz’s distinction between maximizers and satisficers has given us the counterintuitive insight that restricting our choices in life can actually lead to greater happiness and satisfaction, and

We are actually programmed to get satisfaction and pleasure from discovery and creativity, he says, because its results lead to our survival as a species.

The fact that people don’t get along all the time suggests that we don’t understand or value the ways other people see the world. A