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Sheldon B. Kopp Biography

Sheldon Kopp (29 March 1929 – 29 March 1999) 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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Sheldon B. Kopp Quotes

The Zen Master warns: 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!' This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside of ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognize it. Philosophy, religion, patriotism, all are empty idols. The only meaning in our lives is what we each bring to them. Killing the Buddha on the road means destroying the hope that anything outside of ourselves can be out master. No one is any bigger than anyone else. There are no mothers or fathers for grown-ups, only sisters and brothers.

Already, Bigger, Brother, Father, Mother, Recognize

You can't make anyone love you. You just have to reveal who you are and take your chances. (105)

Chance, Chances, Love, Love You, One Love, Reveal

The therapist can interpret, advise, provide the emotional acceptance and support that nurtures personal growth, and above all, he can listen. 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. This listening is that which will facilitate the patient's telling of his tale, the telling that can set him free. (5)

Acceptance, Emotional, Mean, Responding, Vulnerability

To live without the creative potential of our own destructiveness is to be a cardboard angel.

Angel, Creative, Destructiveness, Live, Potential

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. 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. Only if he will give up trying to control his thinking, and let himself sink into his confusion, only then will things become clear. (64)

Become, Confused, Feels, Giving Up, Struggle, Thinking

All of the truly important battles are waged within the self. (7)

Battles, Courage, Important, Self, Waged

Dreams provide a kind of wisdom of the heart, an echoing voice of a profound human sensitivity too often lost to us in the reasonable life of days.

Dream, Dreams, Heart, Reasonable, Voice

If outrageous imagination is the wine of madness, then come fill my cup.

Cup, Cups, Imagination, Madness, Outrageous, Wine

Openness to my own dreams puts me in touch with the oldest, most human aspects of who I am; it helps me find my place in the community of man.

Dream, Dreams, Helps, Men, Touch, Who I Am

You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.

Consequences, Face, Faces, Like, Needs, Responsibility

If I am transparent enough to myself, then I can become less afraid of those hidden selves that my transparency may reveal to others. 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. It is enough that I must die alone. I am determined to let down my walls, whatever the risks, if it means that I may have whatever is there for me.

Afraid, Die, Mean, Reveal, Self, Wall

The continuing struggle was once described in the following metaphor by a patient who had successfully completed a long course of psychotherapy: 'I came to therapy hoping to receive butter for the bread of life. Instead, at the end, I emerged with a pail of sour milk, a churn, and instructions on how to use them. ' (138)

Bread Of Life, Emerged, Long, Receive, Sour Milk, Struggle

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. (98)

Alcoholics, Ambiguity, Bear, Crazy, Pain, Suicide

The adult May fly lives only a few hours, just long enough to mate. He has neither mouth nor stomach, but needs neither since he does not live long enough to need to eat. The eggs the May fly leaves hatch after the parent has died. What is it all about. What's the point? There is no point. That's just the way it is. It is neither good nor bad. Life is mainly simply inevitable. (41)

Eggs, Inevitable, Leaves, Long, Mouth, Parent

One can choose life, or choose death. Having chosen life, I must live it as it is.

Choose Life, Chosen, Death, Having, Life, Live

We all live in a tragicomic situation, a life that is in part absurd simply because it is not of our own making. 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. (40)

Absurd, Choose, Disordered, Improved, Names, World

I have long trusted dreams as prophetic visions. I do not mean that they foretell the future, only that they illuminate the present, when my eyes are closed, so that I may see clearly.

Dream, Eye, Foretell, Mean, See, Trusted

We are all born into families and cultures we didn't choose, given names we didn't pick, instructed in behaviour and values we might not have freely chosen, and too often we end up expected to live lives designed by others.

Born, Culture, Instructed, Live Life, Lives, Names

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

Inspirational, Long, Motivational, Risk, Running, Willing

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.

Face, Helplessness, Loss, Losses, Up To You, Winning

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