Sheldon Kopp Quotes

• There appear to be many people who chose to go crazy (or become alcoholics, addicts, criminals, suicides) rather than have to bear the pain and ambiguity of a life situation that they have decided that they cannot stand.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People

• Love is more than simply being open to experiencing the anguish of another person’s suffering. It is the willingness to live with the helpless knowing that we can do nothing to save the other from his pain.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Love

• All of the truly important battles are waged within the self.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Battle

• Everything good is costly, and the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things. It will cost you your innocence, your illusions, your certainty.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Costly

• You win some, you lose some, and your losses are never made up to you. She will simply have to do without; like it or not, she must face her losses and her helplessness to undo them.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Win, Lose

• It is not possible to know how much is just enough, until we have experienced how much is more than enough.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Possible

• The therapist can interpret, advise, provide the emotional acceptance and support that nurtures personal growth, and above all, he can listen.

  Sheldon Kopp

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  Tags in Therapist

• I do not mean that he can simply hear the other, but that he will listen actively and purposefully, responding with the instrument of his trade, that is, with the personal vulnerability of his own trembling self.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mean

• This listening is that which will facilitate the patient’s telling of his tale, the telling that can set him free.

  Sheldon Kopp

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  Tags in Listening

• That is one of the reasons why a man should pick a path with heart, so that he can find his laughter.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reasons

• So it is that there is nothing to be taught, but yet there is something to be learned.

  Sheldon Kopp

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  Tags in Taught

• We all live in a tragicomic situation, a life that is in part absurd simply because it is not of our own making.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Situation

• We are born into a disordered world, into a family we did not choose, into circumstances we would have had somewhat improved, and we are even called by a name we did not select.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Born

• If I reveal myself without worrying about how others will respond, then some will care, though others may not. But who can love me, if no one knows me? I must risk it, or live alone.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Worrying

• And so, it is not astonishing that, though the patient enters therapy insisting that he wants to change, more often than not, what he really wants is to remain the same and to get the therapist to make him feel better.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Patient

• For each of us, the only hope resides in his own efforts, in completing his own story, not in the other’s interpretation.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Hope

• Only if he will give up trying to control his thinking, and let himself sink into his confusion, only then will things become clear.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Control

• When a patient says he feels stuck and confused, and through good intentions he struggles to become loose and clear, he only remains chronically trapped in the mire of his own stubbornness.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Patient

• If instead he will go with where he is, only then is there hope. If he will let himself get deeply into the experience of being stuck, only then will he reclaim that part of himself that is holding him.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Hope

• In the long run we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving.

  Sheldon Kopp

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Run

Sheldon Kopp (47)

Birth:	29th March, 1929
Death:	29th March, 1999
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Author, Psychologist

About

Sheldon Kopp was a psychotherapist and author, based in Washington, D.C.. He was born in New York City, and received his PhD from the New School for Social Research. In addition to his private practice, he served as a Psychotherapy Supervisor for the Pastoral Counselling and Consultation Centres in Washington. He died of cardiac arrhythmia and pneumonia. He is also popular for his quotes. One of them is, "All of the significant battles are waged within the self."

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