«self-recognition takes shape not as a reflective mirroring within the psyche but rather in the light of what we do or do not do, through the way in which the world reveals itself to us».

— Giampiero Arciero, Guido Bondolfi, Viridiana Mazzola. The Foundations of Phenomenological Psychotherapy

-

«A person cannot know what he really is until he has made of himself an external reality by producing a text, and then reflecting upon it. With Jaspers (1919/ 1960) we could say that a person can only understand herself in a situation. Self-knowledge is not to be achieved through abstract self-reflection, but in the act of self-recognition in the mirror of one’s action.»

— Stanghellini. Lost in dialogue

«An analysis must be painful, not because there is necessarily any value in pain, but because an analysis in which pain is not observed and discussed cannot be regarded as dealing with one of the central reasons for the patient's presence. […] the need, more obvious in some cases than in others, for the analytic experience to increase the patient's capacity for suffering even though patient and analyst may hope to decrease pain itself.»

— W. R. Bion. Elements of Psycho-Analysis

«Я становлюсь ясен самому себе только в итоге внутренней деятельности, которая изменяет также и меня самого. Чисто внешние признаки откровенности, бесстыдное выворачивание наизнанку глубин собственного существа, многословные исповеди, самоанализы и описания внутреннего состояния, упоенность наблюдениями за событиями своей внутренней жизни – все это, как правило, используется для вуалирования всяческих попыток скрыть собственное «Я», не дать ему проявиться вовне. Самопрояснение – это не объективное событие, подобное научному открытию; это скорее форма внутреннего, скрытого от постороннего взгляда поведения, это постижение, выбор, ассимиляция собственного «Я». Ничем не сковываемое выражение того, что будто бы представляет собой жестокую правду, есть лишь имитация настоящей искренности; фиксированный, не подверженный изменчивости характер такого выражения свидетельствует о его несоответствии внутренней правде индивида. Истинное самопрояснение сочетает в себе смирение и глубину, простоту и действенность.»

— Карл Ясперс. Общая психопатология

как жить и что делать

В IEP появилась хорошая обзорная статья про энактивизм: https://iep.utm.edu/enactivism/

«…many modern writers following Kant and earlier usage introduced by Berkeley and muddied (though in constructive ways) by Hume — urge that a central task of philosophy is to "answer the skeptic": to show, presumably, that what the skeptic denies to be possible is in fact not only possible, but actual. To adopt a later medical metaphor, this endeavor strikes me as a form of philosophical resistance in the psychoanalytic sense, a consequence of the very disease of which the skeptic intends to cure philosophers. It is more appropriate, I will argue, not to resist skeptical arguments, but to attend carefully to them. In particular, I will argue that resistance to skepticism rests on a confusion of skepticism with one of its extreme targets — typically what I follow the Buddhist skeptics in calling "nihilism." Such a confusion mistakes the point of skeptical arguments, the conclusions of the critical portions of the skeptical enterprise, and, most importantly, the skeptical solutions[…]»

— Jay L. Garfield. Epoche and Śūnyatā: Skepticism East and West

«So if we look at the "big picture" and attempt to create an overarching goal for psychoanalysis, what would that be? My answer to this question is born out of my own personal analysis, and the most successful cases I have treated. Patients ask me how analysis will change them, if all goes well. Will they be released from the depression that has haunted them their whole lives? Can they rid themselves of self-doubt, negative thinking, or wanting approval? I always say no. I tell them that their basic personality will not change. I tell them that no matter how much better they get, under duress, the old fears, bad habits, and negative attitudes will return.

But I also explain the value of self-awareness, insight and integration. I tell them they can be much better off than they are now through a series of small, yet extremely meaningful, modifications. I tell them it is all a matter of degree, and that the difference between being suicidal and not being suicidal, between having some idea of why you are experiencing a particular emotion versus being completely in the dark, between being able to resolve conflicts with co-workers versus getting fired repeatedly—that these cumulative changes can make for an entirely different life without having to create an entirely different person.

Most of all, I tell my patients that the goal of analysis is for them to know themselves and trust their own intuition and experience. I find that most pathology ends up being expressed through denying one's own perceptions, needs, and feelings. Getting better, regardless of diagnosis, centers on helping patients to listen to their gut reactions and learn to follow them in a constructive way.

[…]

Any notion of trusting one's intuition and feelings must rest on this balance between internal and external reality. I can honestly say that I have never treated anyone who did not know the "truth" about themselves and the people closest to them, no matter what mental gymnastics they might go through to deny or split off that truth.»

— Karen Maroda. Seduction, Surrender & Transformation: Emotional Engagement in the Analytic Process

«In Heidegger also there is no subject, but there is Dasein, the “being-there,” or “being-here,” according to the translation of the German term regularly employed by Heidegger—since his early masterpiece Being and Time (1927)—in place of the traditional term for “subject.” Dasein, however, as Heidegger clarifies, is always and immediately In-der-Welt-Sein: “being- in-the-world.” For Heidegger “always” or “immediately” do not mean “at a second moment in time,” as when subject encounters the world or something in the world is perceived by a subject. On the contrary, what he means is that our being-in-the world is still the world: it is a “fold” of the world and not something different from it. In other words, the being-in-the world is the world folding on itself and revealing itself as other than itself and, at the same time, as nothing other than itself.

[…]

The profound meaning of Heidegger’s view is that experience is not an arrow going from the subject to the object or from the object to the subject, but is rather like an open space stretching between subject and object, a third space of which the subject and the object are the effects, or, worse, the abstractions. There is a world, and there is a being-in-the-world, precisely because there is a dense network of practices, occupations, gestures, and affections in which we are always immersed unknowingly and unintentionally, or at least independently of a previous awareness or decision.»

— Federico Leoni. Time
(in G. Stanghellini et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Phenomenological Psychopathology)

«Buddha’s first attempt to teach was a complete failure. On his way to Gaya, he passed an acquaintance, Upaka, a Jain, who immediately noticed a change in his friend. “How peaceful you look! How alert!” he exclaimed. “You are so serene! Your complexion is clear, your eyes are bright! Who is your Teacher? and whose dhamma are you following these days?” It was a perfect opening. The Buddha explained that he had no teacher and belonged to no sangha. As yet, there was nobody like him in the world, because he had become an Arahant, an “accomplished one” who had won through to the supreme enlightenment. “What!” Upaka cried incredulously. “Surely you are not saying that you are a Buddha, a Jina, a Spiritual Victor, the Holy One for whom we are all waiting?” Yes, the Buddha replied. He had conquered all craving and could indeed be called a Jina. Upaka looked at him skeptically and shook his head: “Dream on, friend,” he said. “I’m going this way.” Abruptly, he turned off the main road into a side track, refusing the direct route to Nibbana.»

— Karen Armstrong. Buddha