Psychotherapy

Abstract

Like beauty, a stressor resides in the eye of the beholder. It should be clear by now that the patient’s cognitive interpretation of the environment leads to the formation of a psychosocial stressor from an otherwise neutral stimulus. This concept has given birth to more eloquent phrasing such as, “There are no things good or bad, but thinking makes them so” (Shakespeare); “It is not what happens to you that matters, but how you take it” (Hans Selye); “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them” (Epictetus); “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” (Eleanor Roosevelt).

I’m an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

—Mark Twain