Cover photograph supplied by Anton Biletskyi-Volokh.
A thematic selection of translated notebook fragments.
Distrust of the whole world reveals the scale of vulnerability: deception or an attack I am not prepared for could destroy me, so I will always be prepared.
Adaptation is possible even in the hardest circumstances. The question is what price the psyche and body will pay for it.
Instead of sadness about the other person’s dependency, the codependent person experiences fear.
The anxiety you try to relieve through dependency is often provoked by the dependency itself.
When nothing impresses you any more, it is important not to seek bigger impressions, but to fast for a while and create a shortage of impressions.
Dependency creates a fear of freedom. The cage is cramped, but at least you know your place.
Interest in the world is not limited to seeking impressions and something new and unusual. It is involvement in the process of living without constantly seeking a prize or result.
Neurosis greatly narrows our potential and our interest in learning about the world. The stronger it is, the harder it becomes to step beyond it.
“The more you work with death, the more life there should be in your own life.”
One of the best pieces of advice a military medic I know gave me in the first months of the war.
A relapse into dependency usually begins with the self-deception that this time you will definitely stay in control, and none of what happened before will happen again.
Leaving dependency means learning to say goodbye to what feels good in the moment if it destroys your life in the longer term.
Fear is the most activating emotion, and anxious people use it like a little coffee to perk themselves up. Anger costs more energy than it gives back, yet rage provides concentration, a direction and relief from boredom.
In an uncontrollable crisis, it is important to notice what can still be controlled. If the world’s situation is unmanageable, your bodily condition, level of physical activity and routine remain within your sphere of control.
Pride is about respect; arrogance is about woundedness and compensation.
The pedantic person often misses the present while trying to control everything in the future. But you cannot control everything there, and life is happening now. Besides, death is always present in the future, and no amount of control can defeat it.
Compensation appears where there is a weak spot or a wound. Those who inflate their importance were unimportant. Attention-seekers went unnoticed. Controllers lived through utter lack of control. Grandiose people demanding admiration were insignificant. Knowing this helps us pick on people less.
Sometimes healing requires giving up omnipotence and the idea that everything can be controlled and anticipated. Life is not a contest in which we must defeat the inevitable. Sometimes acceptance is a greater victory than continuing the fight.
Fear often complicates simple actions. The wish to take extra precautions and keep yourself safe leads you to complicate simple instructions. In the end, the task is left undone and you find yourself in a less safe situation.
Paying more attention to threats than to what is good and safe can help survival in extreme conditions. But when circumstances are relatively safe, concentrating on possible threats produces high anxiety rather than adaptability.
The way out of neurosis involves relinquishing omnipotence. Take anxiety: constant worry about the future gives an illusion of control over it. The way out is not to control everything, but to recognise that total control is impossible.
Psychology Notebook is a translated personal archive of observations, study and lecture notes, paraphrases, quotations and remembered ideas. A fragment’s presence here does not establish exclusive authorship or scientific consensus. These are notebook fragments, not clinical guidance.
About Psychology Notebook · Fragments from a Therapist’s Notebook