Breathing Reflex

Famous quotes containing the words breathing and/or reflex:

    Of all the words mentioned in language, there is not one that I hate more than the word “right.” Is it your right that your field prospers? That you don’t drop dead this very instant? Are living and breathing your right? As far as I can see, nothing but grace and blessing fill the universe, and these worms talk about right?
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

    As a medium of exchange,... worrying regulates intimacy, and it is often an appropriate response to ordinary demands that begin to feel excessive. But from a modernized Freudian view, worrying—as a reflex response to demand—never puts the self or the objects of its interest into question, and that is precisely its function in psychic life. It domesticates self-doubt.
    Adam Phillips, British child psychoanalyst. “Worrying and Its Discontents,” in On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored, p. 58, Harvard University Press (1993)