14 Psychologists Were Asked: 'What Is The Most Profound Thing A Patient Has Ever Said To You?'

Source: https://www.knowable.com/a/14-psychologists-were-asked:-what-is-the-most-profound-thing-a-patient

1. "People don't do drugs to feel good. People do drugs to feel less bad."



2. Child with autism who was struggling with her difficulty making and keeping friends: "It's okay if I don't have any friends. Having friends makes you happy but it doesn't make you a good person. You know who was really popular? Hitler."

3. A patient recovering from body image issues told me: "We spend our whole lives trying to get to a certain place or acquire certain things so that we may be happy. But true happiness is when you realise you are never going to get to that place or that even when you do you will still be dreaming of a new place or new things. So happiness has to start now, with what we have." Basically sums up the whole message of therapy for me to be honest.

4. I was interviewing a bi-polar patient. I asked him how he would describe himself: "An altruistic lover of truth and beauty". I then asked him how others would describe him: "Bit of a c*nt probably".

5. Had a client with general anxiety disorder. She explained the feeling: "It's as if you've tripped and the moment where you don't know if you are going to catch yourself or not. That's how I feel all day."

6. The medication made the voices go away. "I'm lonely now."

7. 56-year-old alcoholic: "I feel like a ghost, walking around unseen in the backdrops of these other happy lives."

8. "My arms miss you." Ten year old Autistic boy asking for a hug.

9. I'm a recovery specialist, and one time my client said," I guess I missed the transition from when the ground was lava and imaginary friends became schizophrenia"

10. "I like you Jace, I don't care what my voices say about you," said by a client with schizoaffective disorder.

11. "Imagine if every small decision felt like it had life or death consequences." Describing living with an anxiety disorder.

12. From a patient with Bipolar at a nursing home I worked at, when talking about how arbitrary the diagnostic guidelines can be: "I don't take my meds to fix me, because there's nothing wrong with me. I take them because everyone else is crazy and I need to fit in."

13. "I don't wanna kill myself. I wanna kill the part of me that wants to kill myself."

14. "Feeling pain is better than feeling nothing."