Jeffrey M. Schwartz Quotes

#1. The essential achievement of the will is to attend to one object and hold it clear and strong before the mind, letting all others-its rivals for attention and subsequent action-fade away like starlight swamped by the radiance of the Sun.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#2. identify the cravings for what they are - a desire to feel better right now.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#3. Each connection that neuroscientists forged between a neurochemical and a behavior, or at least a propensity toward a behavior, seemed to deal another blow to the notion of an efficacious will.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#4. we cannot know what really happens, but only what we observe to happen.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#5. Intention governs attention, and attention exerts real, physical effects on the dynamics of the brain.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#6. The experience of learning how to Relabel, Reframe, Refocus, and Revalue was eye-opening for them because it allowed them to see that their time could be better spent on other pursuits and in healthier ways.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#7. [R]egard your thoughts and feelings as passing, ephemeral "mental events" rather than as accurate reflections of reality.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#8. Carried to its logical limits, a system in which no one has a choice about what action to take is unworkable.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#9. In ancient times, determinism rested on a belief in an omniscient God. Today, it is not old-time religion, but, rather, our culture's newfound faith - science - that challenges the belief in free will.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#10. [T]he cascade of discoveries in neuroscience and genetics has created an image of individuals as automata, slaves to their genes or neurotransmitters, with no more free will than a child's windup toy.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#11. If kittens do not receive visual input between thirty and eighty days after birth (a window of time now known as the critical period), it is too late: the unused eye is blind forever.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#12. almost automatic response: "That's just a senseless obsession. It's a false message. I'm going to focus my attention on something else." At this point, the automatic transmission in your brain begins to start working properly again.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#13. [T]he power of willful activity to shape the brain remains the working principle not only of early brain development, but also of brain function as an ongoing, living process.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#14. [P]erhaps conscious experience is an irreducible entity, like space, or time, or mass. No member of that triad can be explained, much less understood, as a manifestation of either of the other two. Perhaps conscious experience, too, is such a fundamental.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#15. The brain, to be sure, is indeed the physical embodiment of the mind, the organ through which the mind finds expression and through which it acts in the world.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#16. [F]ree will seems to violate all we know of how the world works, but as long as we cannot construct a logical proof of its nonexistence we cling to it tenaciously, even desperately.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#17. We are not passive recipients but active participants in our own process of perception" (Nancy Kanwisher)

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#18. I tried to point out that it's not a gimmick to teach patients suffering with OCD that their intrusive thoughts and urges are caused by brain imbalances, and that we now know they can physically alter those imbalances through mindfulness and self-directed behavioral therapy techniques.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#19. The more often you act in these unhealthy ways, the more you teach your brain that what is simply a habit (a learned behavior) is essential to your survival.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#20. This is the textbook position on quantum mechanics and the nature of reality: that the Cartesian separation of mind and matter into two intrinsically different "substances" is false.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

#21. In a world described by quantum physics, an insistence on causal closure of the physical world amounts to a quasi-religious faith in the absolute powers of matter, a belief that is no more than a commitment to brute, and outmoded, materialism.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz