Thus far we have been able to protect [our children] from the deep and enduring traumas that scar the minds and selves of so many of the patients I see. How — how?—can I make it always so?

~ Christine Montross

Christine Montross Children Parenting Parents Protection Scars Trauma

Standing on the edge with my patients — abiding with them — means that I must harbor a true awareness that I, too, could lose my child through the play of circumstance over which I have no control. I could lose my home, my financial security, my safety. I could lose my mind. Any of us could.

~ Christine Montross

Christine Montross Awareness Child Loss Parents Psychiatry Security

Visions and voices and fear and despair cannot be captured by CT scan or measured in the amplitude of EKG waves. Try as we might, we simply cannot predict which of our patients will kill themselves, which will murder their children, and which will leave the hospital healed, never to return.

~ Christine Montross

Christine Montross Despair Fear Psychiatry

The wisdom of that moment of pure emotion resonates with me still: that the dearest and most enduring moments of our lives are sometimes the quietest ones.

~ Christine Montross

Christine Montross Emotion Life Wisdom