Lisa Firestone Quotes

We can best help our children not by sacrificing ourselves for them, but by trying to fulfill our own lives. When we are involved in an honest pursuit of our own goals, we serve as positive role models for our children.

People must come to the understanding that they do not have a fixed identity. They have the power to identify and alter features of their personalities that they find negative or unpleasant.

Differentiating from parental introjects and psychological defences based on the emotional pain of childhood is essential not only for neurotic or seriously disturbed individuals; it is a central developmental issue in every person’s life.

To the extent that we retain the critical attitudes and destructive elements we have incorporated into our own personalities, we remain undifferentiated from our parents throughout our lifetime.

They implicitly trust that their thoughts, beliefs, and feelings are their own, and fail to recognize that they may be “channeling” someone else’s thoughts and feelings.

Without differentiating from parents or caretakers we may never succeed in living our own lives.

It is a full-time job to cope with alien elements from both interpersonal sources and societal influences.