Letters to a Young Therapist (1 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
Letters to a Young Therapist by Mary Pipher. Copyright 2003 by Mary Pipher
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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LETTERS TO A YOUNG THERAPIST

Mary Pipher

Dedicated to
Jim Pipher and Jan Zegers, my lifelong office mates


INTRODUCTION

In 1972 I saw my first therapy client, a young homeless woman from a brutal alcoholic family. Timidly and apologetically, Charlotte meandered into the free clinic at the university. Thereafter, in our weekly sessions, we struggled to make sense of her lonely, chaotic life. Charlotte would hang her head, her greasy bangs covering her eyes, as she whispered about rapes and beatings. She was so afraid of tenderness that, when I complimented her on even the smallest things, she winced. Six months into therapy, Charlotte pushed her hair away from her eyes and looked me in the face. By the end of our first year together, she would smile when we met and she even occasionally coughed out a tentative laugh. In the three years we worked together, I don't think I did her any harm. We liked and respected each other. No doubt I learned more from her than she learned from me.

Since then I have seen all kinds of people--hyperactive school boys, abused women, gifted students, gay dads, grieving widows, angry teenagers, adults who had committed various kinds of stupidity, psychopaths, people who were taking care of too many people, and families desperately trying to hold together or wrench apart. Over the last thirty years I've watched a lot of pain flow under the bridge.

By now I have a Ph.D. in human suffering. I have listened to many cautionary tales and seen the ways humans can hurt themselves and other people. I have learned vicariously what mistakes not to make. I have witnessed the train wrecks that follow extramarital affairs. I haven't had to gamble, use drugs, or keep secrets to realize that those behaviors are ultimately destructive. I have acquired a lifelong tuition-free education in the consequences of various choices.

During most of my years in clinical practice, I worked six blocks from home with my husband, Jim, and my good friend Jan. We created a "small is beautiful" office. Our kids cleaned it until they left home and then we cleaned it ourselves. We did our own billing and scheduled our own appointments. Once, a high-powered psychiatrist said to me, "I'll have my people call your people." I had to confess, "I have no people."

Over the decades the work changed a great deal. New theories marched to center stage, then exited quietly. We therapists frothed our way through the ditzy seventies and almost destroyed ourselves in the eighties, the era of recovered memory work. We traveled from endless, unstructured sessions to goal-focused short-term therapy. Family therapy, once our finest technique, has almost vanished. And yet, like Homer's "wine-dark sea," therapy is, "always changing, always the same."

I love the work. Sometimes people ask if it is depressing to spend all day listening to problems. I tell them, "I am not listening to problems. I am listening for solutions." Clients generally arrive when they want to make changes. They are paying for advice and are ready to listen. As a therapist, my experience is that unhappy clients become happier, that feuding couples start to enjoy each other, and that families settle down and work together. Not always, but usually, after a few sessions, I begin to hear stories of victories.

In therapy, as in life, point of view is everything. As a therapist, I am slightly detached from my clients' problems. I try to keep my eyes on the prize, which, while tailored for each client, is essentially the same. I want people to leave feeling calmer, kinder, and more optimistic. I want them to be more intentional in their choices and, in many cases, less impulsive in their appetites.

Robert Frost wrote, "Education elevates trouble to a higher plane." So does psychotherapy. It is a way of exploring pain and confusion to produce meaning and hope. This book consists of lessons I've learned from the people who have tromped into my office and flopped down on my old couch for conversations. It distills what I have learned from hundreds of hours of listening to people answer the question, "What brings you in today?"

Along with having sex, sleeping, and sharing food, conversation is arguably one of the most basic of all human behaviors. Two or more people tell each other stories. They struggle to solve the problems of their day and to laugh and calm down. Freud structured these conversations in a new way and academics eventually conducted research on these particular conversations but, in the end, therapy consists of people talking things over.

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