Norman Doidge Quotes

“Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than being immobilized in the same environment: the monotony undermines our dopamine and attentional systems crucial to our brain plasticity.”

“We have senses we don't know we have-until we lose them; balance is one that normally works so well, so seamlessly, that is not listed among the five that Aristotle described and was overlooked for centuries afterward.”

“Analysis helps patients put their unconscious procedural memories and actions into words and into context, so they can better understand them. In the process they plastically retranscribe these procedural memories, so that they become conscious explicit memories, sometimes for the first time, and patients no longer need to "relive" or "reenact" them, especially if they were traumatic.”

“Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors, even for patients who have not lost loved ones to death. We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history.”

“Life made you get your hands dirty”

“In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkof was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer..."I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting.”

“You are the belle of the ball tonight.” He said as he moved in closer. “How can you be so sinfully beautiful Mrs. Norman?”

“I certainly don’t have any interest in being on a dark veranda with any man except my husband, unlike some women do.” - Esther Norman”

“I didn't grow up in a Norman Rockwell house... my house was more akin to Norman Lear.”

“Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision. The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation.”