There are three things needed to eliminate human misery. Unfortunately — Psychotherapy

"Whenever the therapist stands with society, he will interpret his work as adjusting the individual and coaxing his unconscious drives into social respectability. But such official psychotherapy lacks integrity and becomes the obedient tool of armies, bureaucracies, churches, corporations, and all agencies that require individual brainwashing. On the other hand, the therapist who is really interested in helping the individual is forced into social criticism. This does not mean that he has to engage directly in political revolution; it means that he has to help the individual in liberating himself from various forms of social conditioning, which includes liberation from hating this conditioning — hatred being a form of bondage to its object."

"She listened for the pain in my words, not to the narrative itself. She was intuiting what it meant to me, what was most important, what, in that confused mass of experience and yearning she heard in my voice, she could single out to give back."

"If we look deeply into such ways of life as Buddhism and Taoism, Vedanta and Yoga, we do not find either philosophy or religion as these are understood in the West. We find something more nearly resembling psychotherapy. … The main resemblance between these Eastern ways of life and Western psychotherapy is in the concern of both with bringing about changes of consciousness, changes in our ways of feeling our own existence and our relation to human society and the natural world. The psychotherapist has, for the most part, been interested in changing the consciousness of peculiarly disturbed individuals. The disciplines of Buddhism and Taoism are, however, concerned with changing the consciousness of normal, socially adjusted people."

"Therapy is not to "talk about" things, but to change the persons life, and to relieve suffering, such as depression, anxiety, or relationship problems. Of course, empathy and skillful listening are important at the start of each session, but they are simply not sufficient to change the patients life."

"...the human potential and psychotherapy movements, as well as the more life-affirming New Religious Movements and religions of the self. This was the complex world of the Californian psychobabble, of Scientology and est (Erhard Seminars Training, later called Forums Network), of Encounter Groups, meditation techniques and self-help manuals designed to assist individuals realise their potential."