Our inner dialogue is frequently composed of old tape loops that we run again and again... The normal personality marshals sufficient defense mechani… - Sam Keen

Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement.

Self-awareness and self-consciousness are entirely different. When I am “self-conscious,” it is really someone else’s eyes that are watching, judging, and criticizing me. … It is these eyes that must be put out if I am to make sense of and remain in touch with my true self. And when we fail to find symbolic ways of destroying the watchers by becoming our own true witness, then the parents or authorities are sometimes literally killed.

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly

Condition a woman (or a man) to value submission above all other attitudes and you will produce a character type whose most readily expressed emotion will be sadness.