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The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.

Rollo May

Humor is the healthy way of feeling “distance” between one’s self and the problem, a way of standing off and looking at one’s problem with perspective.
ROLLO MAY

Distance Feel Healthy Humor Look Perspective Problem Self Stand Way
Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, “This is me and the world be damned!” Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society – Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.
ROLLO MAY

Against Always Culture Down Every Human Being Leader Line One Point Stand World
One does not become fully human painlessly.
ROLLO MAY

Become Does Human Not One Painlessly
Competitive individualism militates against the experience of community, and that lack of community is a centrally important factor in contemporaneous anxiety.
ROLLO MAY

Against Aleck Community Competitive Contemporary Experience Factor Important Individualism Militate
Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as a being of worth and dignity.
ROLLO MAY

Accompany Emotion Fulfilling Goal Happiness Joy Life Nation Rather
Good art wounds as well as delights. It must, because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies.
ROLLO MAY

Against Around Defence Delight Good Tightly Truth Well Wound
Mass communication–wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued–presents us wit a serious daner, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. (p. 73)
ROLLO MAY

Appreciate Communication Daner Mass May Serious Something Technologically Value Wonder
What anxiety means is it’s as though the world is knocking at your door, and you need to create, you need to make something, you need to do something. I think anxiety, for people who have found their own heart and their own souls, for them it is a stimulus toward creativity, toward courage. It’s what makes us human beings.
ROLLO MAY

Anxiety Create Door Knock Make Mean Need Something Work
Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.
ROLLO MAY

Arise Between Creativity Limitation Spontaneously Tension
Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be. Will we grow in self-actualization, or will it destroy us?
ROLLO MAY

Courage Effect Inescapable Intimacy Know Outlet Relationship Require Risk
Freedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
ROLLO MAY

Capacity Development Freedom Man Old Ourselves Own Takem Hand
Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
ROLLO MAY

Courageous Creativity Encounter God Intense Neither Neurosis Product Simple Talent
Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears.
ROLLO MAY

Deep Feeling Hope Imprint Keeper Meaningful Memory Past Time Upon
Depression is the inability to construct a future.
ROLLO MAY

Construct Depression Future Inability
Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound; it must be achieved each day.
ROLLO MAY

Achievement Automatically Bound Come Day E Ach Freedom Gain Single
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
ROLLO MAY

Absence Ahead Capacity Courage Despair Move Rather Spite

The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.

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The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.

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