Evan

“Even for physical science, the ultimate test of whether or not something is true lies in the individual's experience, not in some objectified, dogmatic set of rules. The sensory experiences which are predictable from natural scientific 'laws' permit agreement between individuals because those individuals share very similar physical structures, are persuaded by the same kinds of logical reasoning, and operate with a similar set of values.”
― David Smail, Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety

“Truly to trust someone is to credit them with having good reasons for what they do even if we cannot see or understand what they are.”
― David Smail, How to Survive without Psychotherapy

“Once all the technical mystique has been stripped away from psychotherapy, it does seem that a likely explanation for its almost explosive expansion over the last few decades is that it provides something which is otherwise in very short supply in a world in which a kind of watchful defensiveness against our vulnerability has replaced any kind of spontaneous generosity which people may more often once have felt for each other.”
― David Smail, Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety

“It is also true, however, that many patients experience psychotropic medication as in itself a further source of confusion and discomfort, since it may alter their perception of the world in an idiosyncratic way, so that their experience seems to bear no relation to the meaning of actual events of their world.”
― David Smail, Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety