Letters to a Young Therapist: Stories of Hope and Healing [Hardcover ed.] 0465057667, 9780465057665

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letters to a

Hope and Healing by the author of REVIVING OPHELIA

Stories of

bestselling

young therapist

".

".'/MM

I'WIIW

US :an

"Mary Pipher

is

like

an old-time cour

ner

loctor,

brimming with home remedies. She puts

black bag

her finger on the pulse of Americas cultural neuroses."

— The Dallas Morning News A

decade ago,

Mary Pipher

electrified readers

with

Reviving Ophelia, her best-selling investigation of America's "girl-poisoning culture."

Now

for the first time this girted

healer shares

what she has learned

psychologist

who

and harried

cents,

helps warring families, alienated adoles-

their lives. Letters to

its

simplicity:

and beauty

professionals restore peace

Much

"Good

mix of storytelling and sharp-

of what she

tells

us

is

profound

and

in

therapy helps people be kinder, calmer

and more authentic. They become more awake, more erant

to

a Young Therapist gives voice to Pipher s

practice with an exhilarating

eyed observation.

in thirty years as a clinical

tol-

altruistic."

This intimate book tackles with honesty and compassion the challenges faced by

all

of us

bled relationships, stressful jobs, too to do. resist

As Newsweek wrote, Pipher

the worst of the culture around

who little

struggle with trou-

time and too

gives readers "a

them and

much

way

to

substitute the

best of themselves."

Mary

Pipher takes a refreshingly inventive approach to

—

of dogma or psychobabble,

therapy

fiercely optimistic, free

and laced with generous wisdom. In an

increasingly stressful

world, she offers "therapy for our times," showing us revitalize

Whether

how

our emotional landscapes and get back to she's

recommending

teenager, encouraging a timid

daily

swims

husband

to

to

basics.

for a sluggish

become

bolder, or

simply bearing witness to a bereaved parent's sorrow, Pipher's

warmth and

insight shine

from every pa

engaging guide to living a healthy

life

r

erfully

letters to a

young therapist

Also by Mary Pipher The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders

The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding

Our Families

Reviving Ophelia:

Saving the Selves ofAdolescent Girls

Hunger Pains: The Modern Woman s Tragic Quest for Thinness

Mary Pipher letters to a

young therapist hope and healing

stories of

BASIC

B

BOOKS

A Member of the

Perseus Books

Group

The names and

identifying details of

all

clients

have been changed to

protect confidentiality.

Copyright

© 2003

by Mary Pipher

Published by Basic Books,

A Member of the Perseus Books

Group

All rights reserved. Printed in the

of this book

may

United States of America.

No part

be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without

written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles

and reviews. For information, address Basic Books,

387 Park Avenue South,

New York, NY

10016-8810.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pipher,

Mary

Letters to a

Bray.

young

therapist: stories of hope

and healing

Pipher. p.

cm.

ISBN 0-465-05766-7 1.

—Miscellanea.

Psychotherapy

I.

Title.

RC480.5.P544 2003 616.89'14—dc21 2003003603 03

04/1098 76543

2

1

/

Mary

Dedicated

Jim

to

Pip her and Jan Zegers,

my lifelong office mates

1

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

Part

i:

Winter

Breadcrumbs

3

Virtues

1

Mother Nature Delivers

19

Family Bashing

25

Deepening Therapy

33

Connecting the Dots

41

Part

II:

Spring

Pain

51

Happiness

57

Metaphor

63

Endurance

69

Self-Care

73

xMedication

79

Dating

85

vn

Contents

Part

Summer

III:

Marriage

95

Helping Ophelia's Family

103

Intentionality

113

Emotional Weather

119

Swimming

123

Danger

127

Therapy and Writing

133

Part

IV:

Fall

Ethics

141

Story Doctors

147

Resistance

153

Failures

159

Healing Solutions from All Over the World

165

Yearning

169

Things Are Becoming Something Else

175

About

the

Author

181

Vlll

—

Acknowledgments

Thanks Pipher,

to

Jamie Pipher,

my

first

reader,

and to Sara

my last one.

Also to readers

Pam

Barger,

Lynda Madison, Jim

Pipher, and Jan Zegers

Thanks for a time

to

John Lehnhoff, who was our

and to

my writer's group,

To mentors and

Hank

office

mate

Prairie Trout.

friends in the mental health field

Baiters, Francis Baty, Lynette

Smith Causey, Eli

Chesen, Jim Cole, Dru Copeland, Dick Dienstbier,

Laura Freeman, Marcia Freer, Grant, gan,

Ken

Bill

Doherty,

Carmen

Gregoire, George Hachiya, George Hani-

Dave Hansen, Herb Howe, Mary Kenning, Carol

Lowery, Frank McPherson, David Myers, Carleton Paine, Natalie Porter, Clay Rivers, Martin Seligman,

Rich Simon, and Brian Sugden.

To Fawl.

the late Charlie Gaston, Pat Kehoe, and Cliff

To Susan Lee Cohen, Jo Ann

Miller,

Candace

Taylor, and Ellen Garrison, with respect and gratitude.

IX

Introduction

In 1972

saw

I

woman from

my

first

therapy

client, a

a brutal alcoholic family.

apologetically, Charlotte

lotte

make

Timidly and

meandered into the

free clinic

our weekly sessions,

at the university. Thereafter, in

struggled to

young homeless

sense of her lonely, chaotic

life.

we

Char-

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

eyes and looked

me

in the face.

year together, she would smile

even occasionally coughed out three years

any harm. I

learned

we worked

By

away from her

the end of our

when we met and

first

she

a tentative laugh. In the

together,

I

We liked and respected

don't think

each other.

I

did her

No

doubt

more from her than she learned from me.

Since then

I

have seen

tive school boys,

all

kinds of people

—hyperac-

abused women, gifted students, gay

XI

Introduction

who had

dads, grieving widows, angry teenagers, adults

committed various kinds of

who were

people

stupidity,

taking care of too

psychopaths,

many

people, and

wrench

families desperately trying to hold together or

Over the

apart.

last thirty

years I've watched a lot of pain

flow under the bridge.

By now I have tened to

many

a

Ph.D. in human

suffering. I

have

lis-

cautionary tales and seen the ways hu-

mans can hurt themselves and other people.

I

have

learned vicariously what mistakes not to make.

I

have

witnessed the train wrecks that follow extramarital fairs. I

af-

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 worked

six

my

years in clinical practice,

I

home with my husband, Jim, and

blocks from

my good friend Jan. We created a "small is beautiful" office.

Our kids

cleaned

it

uled our

cleaned

ourselves.

own I

until they left

We

did our

own

home and billing

me,

"I'll

had to confess,

etly.

theories

We

we

and sched-

"I

have

my

people

marched

call

your

have no people."

Over the decades the work changed

New

then

appointments. Once, a high-powered psy-

chiatrist said to

people."

it

a great deal.

to center stage, then exited qui-

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-

Introduction

term therapy. Family therapy, once our

finest technique,

has almost vanished.

And

dark sea," therapy

"always changing, always the same."

I

all

day listening to problems.

not listening

to

problems.

tions." Clients generally arrive

They

changes. ten.

As

Not

depress-

I tell

them, "I

they want to

make

and are ready to that

is

is

listening for solu-

when

my experience

unhappy

lis-

clients

happier, that feuding couples start to enjoy each

and that families

other,

am

I

are paying for advice

a therapist,

become

Wordsworth's "wine-

Sometimes people ask if it

love the work.

ing to spend

am

is,

yet, like

settle

down and work

always, but usually, after a few sessions,

I

together.

begin to

hear stories of victories. In therapy, as in therapist, I

lems.

I

am

try to

is

detached from

slightly

keep

point of view

life,

my

eyes

tailored for each client,

is

on the

everything. As a

my

prize,

prob-

clients'

which, while

essentially the same. I

want

people to leave feeling calmer, kinder, and more optimistic.

I

want them

choices and, in

many

to be

more

intentional in their

cases, less impulsive in their ap-

petites.

Robert Frost wrote, "Education elevates trouble to a higher plane." So does psychotherapy.

It is a

way of

ex-

ploring pain and confusion to produce meaning and hope. This book consists of lessons I've learned from the

people

who have tromped

down on my old couch

into

my

office

and flopped

for conversations. It distills

what

I

have learned from hundreds of hours of listening to people answer the question,

"What brings you

Xlll

in today?"

Introduction

Along with having conversation

behaviors.

ries.

They

and sharing food,

arguably one of the most basic of

is

man

sex, sleeping,

Two

more people

or

tell

hu-

all

each other sto-

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.

Mark Twain described himself as "all of humanity crammed into a suit of clothes." Everyone who walks into our office contains all the rest of us. And yet, we all run from our humanity. We prevarcomplicated work.

It is

icate

and puff ourselves up.

nerable again,

In

we

feel.

we have

my I

how to

I'm what

"clumsy brainiac." before

fear admitting

We try to hide our flaws.

to learn

case,

We

how vul-

Over and over

simply be human.

a friend

once described

as a

My mother joked I could write essays

could walk.

I

am

blind in one eye, moody, un-

fashionable, directionally impaired, claustrophobic, and easily tuckered out.

confess to. But I

they are

my

those flaws are just the ones

somehow,

know

me. And

And

I've

their flaws

close friends

I'll

found a few people to love

and love them,

too. In fact,

and family, the people

I

love

the most.

As

myself as a generalist, the psy-

a therapist, I see

chologist equivalent of

my

practitioner of medicine. I treat

I

mother,

am

not

young children by helping

a

who was

a general

good play

therapist.

their parents figure out

Introduction

how

to deal with them. I avoid legal

work and

sophisti-

cated diagnostics. Specialization offers financial and professional rewards, but to

sounded

me, specialization has always

Thirty years

dull.

is

long time to solve one

a

kind of problem.

For me, the best

trick

not to have

is

attempt to be clever or sophisticated, myself as well I

as

thought was

assignment, other time

client asked

when

me

if I

me in the

For the most

was on drugs. An-

my

part,

hard-drinking

eyes and said bluntly, "If you can

you ought

my

have been simple ones

to

go to Vegas."

solutions to

— get more

take things a day at a time, and find

human problems

rest,

do good work,

some people

to love.

simple suggestions aren't necessarily easy and

they don't always work.

back on

homework

predicted the future in an attempt to

I

predict the future,

Of course,

often confuse

I

a brilliant, rather mysterious,

my

looked

I

my clients. Once when I suggested what

generate a self-fulfilling prophecy, client

When

tricks.

my belief in

stein said,

When they don't,

I

generally

the process of therapy. Albert Ein-

"A problem cannot be solved by

sciousness that created relationship in

fall

Therapy

it."

which to explore

gives clients a safe

their inner

world and to

consider taking risks in their external one.

them with another point of view on

the con-

their

It

own

provides

particular

mixed-up universe.

As

a student, I studied

Otto Rank, Fritz but

I

never

Perls,

much

Carl Jung, Harry Sullivan,

and George Kelly.

liked the idea that

XV

all

I

read Freud,

good behavior

— introduction

was sublimation.

I

view that

resisted his

—

competition, aggression, and sex

life

was mostly

very male theory.

a

I

was always attracted to growth and strength-based modrespected the humanists and the existentialists

els. I

Abe Maslow, Rollo May, Victor I

was intrigued by Carol

ter's

Frankl, and Carl Rogers.

Gilligan's

and the Stone Cen-

ideas about the self in relationship to others.

before Positive Psychology existed,

I

Even

believed in the im-

portance of focusing on good news.

When

began

I

were mainly

my

testers. I

training in 1972, psychologists

learned to administer intelligence

personality inventories, and projectives, in which

tests,

clients

were shown

indistinct stimuli, such as inkblots,

and asked to report on what they saw. At cinated by

all

those

tests,

first, I

but with experience

I

was

fas-

grew

to

prefer conversations as a diagnostic method. I

interned at the University of Texas Medical Center,

which

at that

employed.

I

time had several pioneers of family therapy

relished the liveliness of family therapy. Later

at the University

of Nebraska

I

taught one of the

chology of Women courses. In some ways

I've

mainstream, but I've also paddled alone.

I

ases against family bashing, cutoffs,

who were clients to I

not in the

room

first

Psy-

swum in the

had strong

bi-

and blaming people

to defend themselves.

I

urged

go home for holidays and attend family reunions.

never used the term "dysfunctional family" or recom-

mended

that

Even

anyone sue

his

own parents.

as a little girl, I felt protective

family. I experienced

my mother XVI

of my

and father

own

quirky

as rather in-

Introduction

competent, unavailable parents with

problems of their own. But

me

loving

I

and doing their

landscape comes from don't judge

my

them harshly

feel inclined to

many complicated them

also experienced

best.

Much

my

of

internal

conversations with them.

for their mistakes

as

and

I

I

don't

judge others too harshly either.

Perhaps because of

my

training in anthropology,

have always viewed mental health problems

I

as related to

the broader environment. Depression, anxiety, domestic

mention

violence, and drug and alcohol abuse, not to

hyperactive children and eating disorders, arise from our

deeply dysfunctional culture. culture in

and

Who

can be healthy in a

which children watch movies about hookers

How can we expect people to be happy

serial killers?

when they

don't

know

their neighbors, see their ex-

tended families, or have time for naps on Sunday

after-

noons?

As effects

come.

a culture,

on

we

others,

are mired deep in denial about our

on the

earth,

and on generations to

We ignore the problems of children, refugees, the

aged, and the poor.

Our media encourages

surface level, to think about

of world peace or our

own

window treatments

spiritual needs.

cated to be compartmentalized. sick, physically

Good

us to live at a

Our

We

culture

instead

are edu-

makes us

and emotionally.

therapy gently but firmly moves people out of

denial and compartmentalization. It helps clients de-

velop richer inner

lives

and greater self-knowledge.

teaches clients to live harmoniously with others.

XVll

And

It it

Introduction

enhances existential consciousness and allows people to

on the world

take responsibility for their effects

For me, happiness

about appreciating what one

is

means lowering expecta-

has. Practically speaking, this

tions about

what

at large.

and

possible,

is fair,

likely. It

means

finding pleasure in the ordinary. I'm not a television-

watcher or shopper and,

away from the idea

as best I can, I steer

that happiness

people

connected to having

is

more, more, and more.

To be an sibility

adult

all

ill

and the profoundly mentally challenged, we are

own

to understand

tiful

patronizing and

lives. It's

contemptuous to believe otherwise.

I

believe that after

I

with the exception of the chronically men-

responsible for our

Then

awesome respon-

to accept the

of constantly making choices.

a certain age, tally

means

encourage

I

and accept the past with

urge them to

for themselves

move on

to create

and others.

all its

clients

complexity.

something beau-

We all have our sorrows,

but they don't exempt us from our duties. I

opened

my private

practice in 1979,

practice took place during the golden age

had plenty of time to help

good insurance coverage

clients.

and most of my

when

therapists

Most people

carried

and even factory

for therapy

workers could come in for extended periods and explore their issues at a leisurely pace. Therapists weren't expected

to produce rapid concrete changes.

slammed

into our state, I ignored

When managed it.

I

many years of doing things my own way. outsiders calling the shots with

XVlll

care

had enjoyed too I

my clients.

couldn't tolerate

Introduction

Recently

met

I

therapy was, "All

a

killer,

no

Good

skepticism.

Of

time.

course

some

He

filler."

treat most people in four sessions.

my

who bragged

busy therapist

his

claimed he could

I

could barely conceal

therapy, like

good cooking, takes

clients

and therapists abused the

old system. But most of us used our time wisely. In the

we could develop strong

past,

clients.

apists

relationships with our

Now in the crunch to save time and money, ther-

must work

Much is

fast

and demonstrate weekly progress.

lost in the process.

Over the years

I

worked

for the University of

Ne-

braska as a clinical supervisor for graduate students in psychology. Sometimes in a

on

sessions or

I

drove to the university and sat

watched

my students work from behind

one-way mirror. Often the students carried

my

of therapy to

and

I

home.

my VCR

played them on

offered tips and sympathy.

have written

I

We

their tapes

Laura,

this

book

who was my favorite and

in her twenties

single.

in the

form of

letters to

graduate student. Laura was

She was open-minded, warm-

hearted, and deeply in love with psychology. Like me,

she was an outdoors person. Unlike me, she was a risktaker ing.

who liked

canoeing, roller blading, and rock climb-

Like most young therapists, Laura was a funny mix

of scared and overconfident. She wanted to sample every kind of client, but she was easily overwhelmed. I

hope both

therapists and general readers relish

offer plenty of clinical examples

these letters.

I

own work.

save quotations and

I

XIX

I

can't resist

from

my

throwing

Introduction

in

some of my

ogy lingo and

favorites. I try to avoid

social science jargon,

popular psychol-

and yet

want

I

to

gently remind readers that in these harsh times, therapy

can be a solution. I

wrote these

letters in the early

My

morning.

desk

overlooks an old maple tree,

my flower garden,

and bird

and squirrel feeding

The

yearlong

stations.

letters

project and the seasons influenced writing.

were

a

my moods

(The reader may enjoy analyzing me

and

my

for sea-

sonal affective disorder!) I

began writing these

bitterly cold

to

letters

day in Nebraska.

on December

ings,

but

letters

it

was

were

New Year

They

on human-sized

11. All

of us

might bring better

a dark time for the world.

a kind of vacation.

tunity to focus

2001, a

We were just about to put

bed the year that included September

were hopeful that the

2,

gave

tid-

For me, these

me

an oppor-

issues rather than global

events.

Dear

reader, I

hope you

cational and fun. Indeed

served as a therapist

is

find these letters both edu-

one of the things

that fun

is

by no means

one of the best things we have. So,

XX

trivial. It's

settle yourself into a

comfortable spot in the sunlight or by a

peach tea and find a cat for your

have ob-

I

fire.

Make some

lap. Let's visit.

Part

I:

Winter

1

B readcrumbs

December

2

Dear Laura, Last night

I

sorted through

white photographs. In one of asleep with a magazine

some old black-and-

my

baby

pictures, I

my chest. Even

on

myself to sleep. In another,

I

then,

I

"read"

pose joyfully in a high chair

my

covered with dinner, happily stuffing cake into

mouth.

Still

today,

good food

Another photo shows

pleasures.

is

one of

me

my

greatest

standing beside

brother Jake in front of a big, red brick building. first

day in

a

new school. We're

fashioned coats.

We

am

dressed in

It's

ill-fitting,

my our

old-

look skinny and scared, our eyes

wide with alarm. He's leaning into

me

and

I

am

holding

his hand.

These

pictures construct a

the forest of time that

lies

breadcrumb

between the

trail

through

me who was

born

Mary Pipher

Ozark Mountains and the

in the

who

Nebraska today. The

lives in

fifty five-year-old

who

girl

me

squeezed her

hand before marching into the schoolhouse

brother's

echoes within the therapist "Together

we can make

who

As an old man, Mark Twain age at which the things

happened."

Memory is

often says to clients,

things better."

I

said, "I

have arrived

remember most

at

clearly never

constructed and reconstructed.

changes constantly and

is

as subjective as

an

dreams.

It

Still,

my breadcrumb trail with you. I lived first in a small house my dad built when he re-

I'd like to share

turned to Missouri after World

War Two. A

year later

school. After she

my mother could go to medical graduated, my family's trail meandered

number of

small Nebraska towns, and then to

we moved to a

Denver so

to

Kansas, where

Four years

I

graduated from high school in 1965.

later I received

my

undergraduate degree

from the University of California at Berkeley. Afterward, I

bummed

down

around Europe and Mexico before

to graduate school and, later, to

life

I settled

in Lincoln as a

wife, mother,

and psychologist. From the beginning, no

matter where

I

and intense.

I

have

lived, I

have been

restless, talkative,

have liked people, the natural world, and

books.

Certain defining

member

the night

moments shaped my

when

I

thinking.

was three years old that

I

re-

I

be-

came

a cultural relativist,

know

the phrase at the time. This was in 1950, before

antibiotics

although, of course,

were widely used.

My

I

didn't

mother had lectured

letters to a

young therapist

my baths, I must immediately dry my feet and put on my socks so that I wouldn't catch cold. But one night my Aunt Agnes supervised me as I

me

frequently that, after

crawled out of her tiger-claw bathtub and toweled off

my feet.

She admonished me, "Good

bottoms

first

My

on

women whom

a subject

family

life

of such

working pigeons.

vital

My

was

importance. in point of view. I

in a big family with a doctor

who, when he wasn't

a lab-technician father

in hospitals,

I

deeply trusted could

I

was an education

was the oldest daughter

mother and

dry their

and then put on their underpants."

surprised that two disagree

little girls

took time to raise

pigs, geese,

and

mother's people were Methodists from

eastern Colorado, poor ranchers, but well-educated and

civic-minded.

My father's relatives were colorful, warm-

hearted people from the Ozarks.

who was

liberal, a

Goldwater, and another uncle

and had no interest in

grandmother Glessie

politics at

May

a millionaire aunt

who

voted for Barry

sold wieners and lard

My Aunt Margaret's around the world. My all.

was married to

a

man who

and died without ever leaving Christian

County, Missouri.

want

had

who

family spent a year traveling

lived a long life

I

farmer uncle

He

asked rhetorically,

to leave paradise?"

"Why would

I

At our house, emotional people

played cards with stoics. Sophisticates and provincials told long stories

and Southern Baptists shared chicken

dinners with Unitarians.

When we

lived in Beaver City, Nebraska,

of our extended family would

visit

members

us for weeks at a time.

Mary Pipher

My

cousins and

I

would roam the

fields,

hike

down

to

Beaver Creek, or bike around town looking for action on the quiet streets. At night, the adults played cards and

argued night,

up

politics.

my

dad would bribe the others, "Would you stay

if I fried I

When conversation flagged around mid-

some T-bones and potatoes?"

slept in a

daybed

just off the dining

room and

I

stayed awake listening to the sound of grown-ups talk-

Why did certain people fall in love with each other? Why did one family forbid rock and roll and movies? Why did one uncle drink so much? Why did some relatives love FDR and others detest him? Why was one cousin a bully and another woning.

As

I listened, I

asked myself:

me?

derfully patient with I

worked

sterilizing

at

my mom's

office

counting out

pills

rubber gloves and surgical equipment.

I

and

heard

the nurses whisper about things that most kids didn't

know

—that the woman who cleaned the

prostitute, that the rich farmer

who

bank was

my

sent

a

mother

flowers wanted her to perform an abortion for his girlfriend,

and that the laughing

man who

ushered us into

church was dying of leukemia.

Every small town has Shakespeare.

I

knew

the

a cast of characters right

town drunk, the

shut-ins, the old soldiers,

and ignorant, others

saintly or bitter

and the gay choir

schoolteachers were of mixed caliber,

out of

director.

some

My

indifferent

fiercely dedicated to teaching us the

chief exports of Peru and China and tences. I chatted with

how to diagram

sen-

hardworking merchants, hoodlums

letters to a

young therapist

with ducktail haircuts, a kind-hearted undertaker, and a

hot-tempered mayor. Our next-door neighbors believed it

was

sinful to

wear shorts

in public.

That meant the

boys couldn't play basketball and none of the kids could

swim

at

—

our public pool

a

harsh religion indeed.

Another breadcrumb on the

trail

my role as fam-

was

ily leader.

My parents were away from home most of the

time and

we

neglect.

kids experienced a great deal of benign

Many times we

trudged through a blizzard eight

blocks to school only to discover that school was can-

Summer mornings

celled for the day. self a

bowl of

whether

ice

cream

I'd rather

I

would dish my-

for breakfast

and then decide

spend the morning

at the library or

under our apricot tree playing with other planner and aunt asked

He

kids. I

was the

my family. Once when I was five, my

fixer in

my dad if our family wanted to go on a picnic.

answered, "Ask Mary, she plans everything."

Some

would immediately

psychologists

label

me

parental child, prematurely responsible, and they

But I see

tsk-tsk in sympathy.

tant family role,

omy.

I

dren,

I

making

ered that the

me

young the

developed decisions,

way to

needs of others. If cookies, and

differently. I

which offered

learned very

being useful.

it

would

had an impor-

authority7 and auton-

joys of

working hard and

in cooking, caring for chil-

and organizing people.

I

discov-

my needs met was to first meet the

get I

skills

as a

could

make them

tell

laugh,

people I

stories,

would be

bake them

loved.

The prejudice in my town was another breadcrumb. The crippled son of our drugstore owner once made the

Mary Pipher

another boy, and after

terrible mistake of trying to kiss

that his

when

I

life

was

a perpetual hell.

To

day

this

I

shudder

him

think of the punishment inflicted on

for be-

ing "different." There were twin brothers,

Denny and

who were

teased mer-

Kenny, unwashed and neglected,

crime of being sons of a convicted mur-

cilessly for the

derer.

Another

kid,

Herbert, had some kind of dental

problem that caused him

and slobber when he

to spit

spoke. Children wouldn't go near

him because he had

Naomi

Rainwater, a Native-

"germs." Finally there was

American

invisible.

Even

too young to

up

attended our school. Students just to-

ignored her,

tally

and

who

girl

I

having brown skin made her

as if

as a kid, I

sensed

for the children I have

now.

I

was wrong.

know what to do about it, but I

stayed out of cruel games.

either.

all this

Maybe

that

is

I

wish

why

I

try to stand

skies sparkled clearer

is

then and

I didn't

up

I

prairie

dog

remember frost.

elms in the town square visiting with old

villages.

I

A

The

the North-

In the pre-

under the

men and

ba-

sipped limeade and read comics at the drugstore

at night,

looked

do that

for people

television world, time unfurled slowly. I lazed

and

stood

hardly imaginable.

ern Lights and winter stars tense with

bies. I

I

it

for.

Our town was surrounded by place in America

was

didn't like

could say

mentioned but

have something to atone

more remote

I

I

at the

my

friends and

Milky Way, and

I

sprawled in the grass,

told ghost stories.

learned to depend on the natural world for comfort

and entertainment. After rainstorms,

I

rescued baby

letters to a

birds and mice and once

mer companion. In

magpie to be

raised a

I

Then we

fall.

my sum-

the spring, our family bought baby

we

coyotes from bounty hunters and until

young therapist

released

played with them

them by Beaver Creek.

We

picked up turtles and snakes off the highways and kept

them

in aquariums. I

could be and

I

was outdoors every moment

learned that whenever

Mother Nature would

set,

By book

the time

I

was twelve,

I

Keller, Albert Sweitzer,

Curie.

and

a

I

—not

collection was small.

A

loved

I

book

children

Tree

had read every children's a great feat

because the

liked the biographies of

Eleanor Roosevelt, and

Grows

in Brooklyn,

Helen

Madame

The Good Earth,

The Silver Sword about heroic Polish

called

who

I

was bored or up-

take care of me.

our town library

in

I

survived without parents during

World

War Two. At

and evil

it

this

age

I also

discovered the Diary of Anne Frank

stunned me. For the

—not

of which

just I

afterward,

time,

I

encountered

misguided, impulsive, or confused actions,

had seen I

first

plenty, but truly evil ones.

For weeks

didn't eat or sleep well. I couldn't imagine a

point of view that allowed adults to murder children.

mind struggled

to

comprehend

this

My

new information

about what humans could do to each other. But paradoxically,

the story also taught

me

about heroism. Anne

my greatest hero. Sometimes my books landed me

Frank remains

a family

vacation

I

in trouble.

Once on

was reading Erich Fromm's The Art of

Loving. This was a popular psychology

book exploring

Mary Pipher

My dad glanced with alarm at the

the nature of intimacy.

He

title.

surmised

and threw

I

had descended into smutty material

my beloved book into our campfire. me all over the world; it entercalmed me down when I was rattled from

Reading transported tained

me

and

family arguments or a rough day at school.

could be in also in

my

family's kitchen stirring

London with David Dana

jewel thieves with the

With books

bean soup and

Copperfield, on the Sisters or

I

trail

Nancy Drew

of

My

mind became roomier. If

we

conceive of

life as a

calendar year, beginning

with spring and ending in deepest winter, then the late

autumn of

my

life.

I

am

in

This season encourages an

The stuff I took for granted as a summer days when nothing happened, aunts

examination of the past. girl

—long

canning tomatoes or making mincemeat evenings smelling of burning leaves with longing

as a

how your

told

me

—makes me ache

summer of your

seasons will unfurl.

vision session I'd like to hear

You

fall

middle-aged woman.

Laura, you are in the early curious to see

pies,

that in school

life. I

am

Next super-

more about your

history.

you were the student other

kids talked to about their problems. Being a confidante

part of your breadcrumb field.

An

trail, as it is

for

many

is

in our

examination of your past can help you

know

Knowing yourself helps with your

life as

yourself better.

well as with your work.

10

2

Virtues

December 26 Dear Laura, I just

tion.

returned from our family Christmas celebra-

We gathered for a potluck dinner followed by plum

pudding and told

me

a gift

exchange. Over guacamole

my niece

she planned to be a webmaster, a profession not

even invented

when

about choosing

I

was her

a career,

age.

We

had

a

good

talk

about the difference between

how work shouldn't be just about money. My niece told me she had heard there were jobs for webmasters in Tampa being good

at

something and liking

and she'd always wanted to

Our made

discussion led

me

live

it,

and about

near a beach.

to reflect

on

my own decision,

impulsively thirty years ago, to be a psychologist.

Because

I

couldn't secure funding for graduate school in

anthropology,

I

more or

less

l

l

bumbled

into psychology.

Mary Pipher

On

a

whim,

I

walked into the campus psychological con-

sultation center

gram.

He

and met the director of the

encouraged

me

and guaranteed funding.

was damn

and speaker

sultant, teacher, writer,

psychologist. Laura,

lucky. I loved gradu-

good

therapist.

—

all

Permit

because if

therapists

fortable after

end up

was

a

to have an

topic.

sitting in small, often

rooms eight hours

I

you have the

me

"Aunt Mary" conversation with you on that

We

con-

as a therapist,

know you wonder

I

pro-

program

to consider the Ph.D.

been able to work

ate school. I have

talents to be a

I

clinical

uncom-

day listening to one person

a

another talk about unresponsive mates, surly

teenagers, and control-freak bosses. Unless

we have

abiding curiosity, hour after hour of such conversations

can be tough slogging. fascinated

by the

We who like the work tend to be

infinite variety

of ways in which humans

get themselves in and out of trouble.

Doing therapy It's

requires energy, focus, and patience.

not particularly remunerative or prestigious and,

unless

you

are motivated

are unlikely to

couldn't

last.

by

a desire to help others,

you

Therapist Harry Aponte said that he

work with people

unless he saw something of

himself in them and they saw something of themselves in

him. Just as respect tends to be mutual, so does contempt. Unless your basic feelings toward most people are positive, therapy

One

is

not for you.

of my writing teachers once advised me, "If your

message for the world

is

that

life is shit,

Not a bad dictum for therapists 12

as well.

spare the reader."

People come into

letters to a

therapy is

when they feel whipped.

about hope.

pregnant fifty

I

can

still

A great deal of our work

picture Kimberly, a beautiful

woman with waist-length blond hair sobbing for

minutes, unable to talk after telling me, "I have

That first session I passed her Kleenex and end

I

hugged her and

invited her back in

ing our second session

and her husband

kids

young therapist

who

we

who

wasn't

two

days.

Dur-

young

of a provider and

leaned on her for decision-making and emotional

support. She cried

some more.

done the hardest thing which

And

much

At the

listened.

talked about her three

MS."

I

I said, is

"You have already

to face this problem."

continued, "You'll get through

this.

You

are

stronger than you think. Your family will do their best."

At the end of that second session

I

asked,

"What can you

do to cope with the next few days?" Tearfully Kimberly answered, "Tonight

I'll

take

my girls to the park."

Hope was my primary gift to Svetlana, a shy girl who was the victim of much teasing in middle school. By the end of the ninth grade, she had internalized scorn and no longer believed in herself. As

her

I

all

her peers'

got to

know

discovered her love of animals and her wry sense of

humor.

I

helped her find

a place she

and supported her decision to take

Humane built

I

a

could ride horses

volunteer job at the

Society. Svetlana developed

new

skills,

up her confidence. Her work with animals

which carried

her away from her mean-spirited classmates to older, wiser people. I

made

a

few predictions. "Over the summer you

will

be surprised by moments of happiness and confidence.

13

Mary Pipher

Next part

was

you

year,

my a

meet

will

predictions

came

true.

happy one and

in the

fall

into high school. She did told

me,

"I'd rather shovel

cent screwed-up-ness that

conceded.

I

couldn't

Most of us and care taking

spirit."

The summer a

good

manure than

friend, but she

face the 100 per-

high school." Fair enough,

work

I

for deeply personal rea-

grew up nurturing

to acknowledge. I

as the "big sister."

But

alas,

I'm also pretty

being bossy and overly responsible.

at

of horses

Svetlana marched bravely

make

is

For the most

everything.

fix

are in this

we need

sons that

good

kindred

a

watch both of these tendencies

I

have to

as a therapist.

We need to recognize when we are getting our clients mixed up with our mother, our elementary school principal, or

we can at

our

help and

first

boyfriend.

whom we

We need to know whom For example,

can't.

working with violent men. They scare

forgive

them

While

I

for hurting

don't think

of mental health,

I

women and

we

therapists

me

I

am

and

lousy

I can't

children.

need to be paragons

do think we need

to be reasonably

well-adjusted. Addicts, psychopaths, and self-deluded therapists

people

damage vulnerable

skills. I

high school,

I

clients.

We

acquired mine as a waitress. All through

was

a

carhop

at

an

A&

W Root Beer

stand. In college, at various greasy spoons

shops,

I

and some of the kindest

the time

and donut

dealt with crabby, persnickety customers,

with snobs, drunks, and cheapskates. jokers,

need good

I

figured out

how 14

I

also

and

met charmers,

folks imaginable.

to get along with

John

By

Q

letters to a

Public,

had

I

good education

a

young therapist

in the vagaries of hu-

manity.

Graduate students

whom

the other students avoid

because they are abrasive or strange had best seek other

My class

work.

Rob was

included one "psychonoxious" therapist.

a bitter, sarcastic

making other people

person

who seemed

feel small.

to enjoy

As our introductory

therapy class watched Rob's sessions on videotape,

we

When

our

squirmed in our state

seats.

he tested

mental hospital, he precipitated

in his client.

When

he saw

a patient at

a psychotic

break

his first client, a depressed

English major, he soon had her in tears with his hostile

("Do you

questions.

you trying thing

really expect

to manipulate

more

and remained

silent.

But

to believe that?

Our

teacher looked stunned

few weeks

a

ferred into experimental psychology

mostly with

One alism.

Are

Why didn't you do some-

me?

intelligent?")

me

later,

Rob

trans-

where he worked

rats.

of the luxuries of our work

is

that

it

sustains ide-

Unlike cops, landlords, or bar owners, therapists

tend to like humans more the longer they are in the field.

That's because

we come

to understand the

from the point of view of others.

We

see that

world

most

people want to be good.

Being therapist.

a client

When

was one of I first

my

best lessons in being a

called for an appointment,

voice cracked with embarrassment. nerable.

I

learned

how

hard

it

to share secrets with a stranger.

15

I felt

stupid and vul-

was to admit I

my

failures

and

cared desperately about

Mary Pipher

my

what

marks

therapist thought and

seriously. I noticed

when he

took his smallest re-

I

what kind of pens he used and

blinked.

My therapist was a low-key guy without pretensions. I

saw him

house Saturday mornings. His wife

at his

me

would hand

cup of coffee and show

a

He would smile,

office.

ally listen to

what

I

ask

had to

rarely gave advice.

me

to his small

me what was up, and then resay. He didn't analyze me and

Sometimes he made small

jokes.

Mainly he was kind.

Once when

I

was trying to describe how

gently suggested the

ment ing

I

I

word

was ready to do

so,

I felt,

"angry." At precisely the

me

he helped

he

mo-

identify a feel-

couldn't easily acknowledge.

Good therapists have a tolerance for ambiguity. The human condition is variegated, multifaceted, and particular.

There

is

no

one-size-fits-all

way

end, the answer to most questions therapists flops.

who

think,

it's

my way

"It

depends." Rigid

or the highway, are

Their black-and-white smugness drives

live in

what

clients,

gray worlds, crazy. In our town, there's

who

therapist ter

who

is,

to proceed. In the

is

a one-trick pony. All his clients,

a

no mat-

their problems or personalities, receive his

brand of confrontive, behavioral-focused, short-term therapy,

which can be

useless or even harmful to

some

clients.

Labeling

a

problem

as

"complex"

is

one of my more

effective therapeutic approaches. Clients appreciate

being pigeonholed.

It is a

way of

16

not

respecting people to

letters to a

young therapist

describe their situations as complicated. If problems

Complex

simple, clients wouldn't be in therapy.

judgmental word that buys time and space. that circumstances

may

be examined for

a

is

It

felt

non-

suggests

new and

sur-

prising revelations.

Therapists need to be able to sort true from untrue,

deep from shallow, and temporary from long-term.

need what Hemingway referred to tectors."

fuzzy-headed therapist

me

"foolproof shit de-

Muddled thinking and mealy mouthed

tions never help anyone.

told

as

at a

I

We

once met

a

psychotherapy

affirma-

sweet but

institute.

She

that she gave unconditional positive regard to

everyone, even psychopaths and borderlines. She quoted the Beatles: "All

is

love." I

need much more than

"clients ity

you need

and perspective and

a

that.

few need

thought to myself,

Almost

all

need

clar-

a figurative kick in the

butt."

Nonjudgmental can mean indiscriminate and openness can

mean

cadets, strange agents,

therapists

walk

old-fashioned ideas.

ing

is

work

We

Our

rudderless.

is

common

know

Good

Much

of our

not hard science. Rather, therapy includes

a real

list

new

for sure that our understand-

profound or our advice apropos. is

share of space

sense and encouraging

What really works

sci-

in ther-

person connecting to a real person.

Don't be intimidated by what dable

its

beam between maintaining

ence, intuition, and kindness.

apy

has

and woo-woo practitioners.

a balance

can never

field

may

look like a formi-

of virtues. These qualities occur naturally in

17

Mary Pipher

most of the people interested

work

as therapists;

we

thrive

why we human prob-

in our field. That's

on

tackling

lems. Laura, except for years of experience,

everything you need to be a great therapist.

18

you possess

3

Mother Nature Delivers

January

3

Dear Laura,

We ping

are in

trees, so

what the Lakota

named because

called the

this

moon

of pop-

time of year ice storms

break tree branches with a loud pop. Next month will be

moon of frost in the tepees. Late March brings the moon of snow blindness. These names for moons give us the

a

glimpse into the Lakota 's connection to their environ-

ment. I

I

am

ing one sent a

wish we used these names today.

me

putting away last

time

a picture

at

my holiday decorations

Christmas cards.

My

and look-

client

Sandra

of her dog. This year Placido stands in

garden with his tongue out and an American flag Sandra makes her living frying donuts.

around

his neck.

She has

built her life

around Placido,

who

gives her

what

she has of contentment and friendship. Over the years

19

I

Mary Pipher

have received a drawer

Many

pets can be for people.

have been rescued by their relation-

clients

wanted

ships to animals. Donella always

long

a pet,

but had a

of reasons she shouldn't have one. She was

list

lergic to cat hair,

had

afford cat food, kitty

tember

They re-

of Placido pictures.

fall

mind me how important

to the

ten.

She

and vet

bills.

But

Donella couldn't concentrate

11,

went

apartment, and couldn't

a studio

litter,

Humane

at

Sep-

after

work. She

Society and selected a Siamese kit-

"Without Sofie

said,

al-

I'd

be on Prozac and

Metamucil."

Losing pets

is

a

much more

painful experience than

most people

anticipate or than our culture generally ac-

knowledges.

Many clients

loss

of a pet.

than

I

way deep ture

"I feel stupid

But often they add,

this."

loss

They say,

we

cried

apologize as they sob over the

am

"I

being so upset about

crying

when my parents

more about

died." Pets

work

this

their

into our hearts, but in our human-centric cul-

can't afford to

admit

this.

In a Jane Goodall film called Children and Nature, kids with serious psychological problems

camp where they were allowed selves.

At

first,

to choose pets for

would not abuse the animals.

animals

common

make

Sadly, hurting

in disturbed children. Gradually, the

children grew fond of the animals and selected their pets.

Then many

pets for fear they

a

them-

the staff watched the kids closely to

sure they is

were sent to

own

of the children hesitated to touch their

would hurt them. These

kids

had never

experienced themselves as anything but destructive, and

20

letters to a

now

young therapist

they expected that they would accidentally destroy

what they

loved.

As they cared

for their animals

and de-

veloped relationships with them, they realized that their pets

were dependent on them

in order to survive,

the children experienced their

first

and

unconditional posi-

tive regard.

Animals don't

live in clock-time, let

time or microwave- time. Recently,

among

fair

walked

as cattle

moved

moving

a

thought to

at exactly the

same speed

thousand years ago. In 2003,

therapeutic for kids to slow

down

logical law that states

when organisms

soon match rhythms.

When we

we slow down. Then, amazing

it's

to the speed of cattle.

Rhythms synchronize. "Entrainment"

gust

at the state

I

the kids displaying their cattle.

myself, these cattle are

today

I

alone computer-

refers to a bio-

are together they

are in the natural world

things happen. Last

Au-

my daughter-in-law and I lay down on a blanket and

watched the Perseid meteor showers. As we breathed the cool grassy air and counted the stars falling,

we had one

of the finest conversations in our relationship.

about

life

in outer space, death,

Laura, you

know about

We talked

God, and time.

the effects of nature from

your rock climbing and canoeing. As you move speed of a

open up

river,

at the

your breathing changes. Your senses

to the smell of trees

and the sounds of splashing

The Xhosa people of South Africa believe that a human community will be cursed and die when no one

water.

notices the rising and setting of the sun and the phases of

the

moon.

I

am

inclined to agree. If

21

we

are too out of

Mary Pipher

touch to notice the "moon when the cherries turn black,"

what

is it

we

are in touch with?

Perhaps the greatest

world that

is

is

gift

we

receive

moment when we

the

from the natural

understand something

deeply important. Theoretically

epiphanies in shopping malls, but that generally

come

is

we can have

not where they

when

to us. Epiphanies burst forth

it's

quiet and slow.

Jim and cock.

once camped with folksinger Butch Han-

I

We journeyed through Big Bend National Park on

the Texas/Mexican border. In the park, ocutillo flowers

blossomed

like flames

on the ends of

their long candle

branches. Javelinas and coyotes foraged in tamarisk, bel-

ladonna, and mesquite.

most of the

canoed up the Rio Grande

day. Early evening,

talked while

the river,

We

we cooked

my

we

dinner.

pitched our tents and

Even though

conversation was political and

I

gloomy, reflecting the cloudy sky and the weary all

must have been

feeling. Just then, the

was on

my mood chill

we

sun broke out

and flamed the canyon walls an iridescent bronze. Butch turned to

me

and

said,

"Look. Look. This

thing that really can happen." this

remark

metaphor.

as

profoundly

When

I

am

blazing canyon wall and

I

as I

the kind of

am not sure Butch meant heard it. For me it was a

discouraged, tell

is

myself,

I

remember

"Look

at the

that

good

things that can happen."

Laura, you can't orchestrate epiphanies, but you can

suggest walks at sunset and blankets on the grass on starry nights.

Then you

can cross your fingers and hope

22

letters to a

that a goose flies across the face of the catalpa flowers

blow down on your

Whenever you

are

their heads, consider

nothing

like a kitten

down. After benefit

a

recommending

playing in front of a at the office,

my office,

cent picture of Placido.

23

I'll

or that

clients like snow.

from the manic warmth of a in

moon

working with people who

long day

Next time you're

young therapist

a pet. fire to

live in

There

is

calm you

most humans can

loyal dog's greeting.

show you

my most re-

a

4

Family Bashing

February

3

Dear Laura, Annie Dillard writes

that,

"A day spent reading

is

a

day well spent," an observation most befitting February.

This time of year ing.

Usually

I

I start

spend most evenings by

with work-related books and

but after an hour or so

I

The

stars,

articles,

switch to an old favorite like

Cather or Trollope. Outside cept for the brittle

my fire read-

it's

a

deep freeze, black ex-

but inside

it's

bright and warm.

contrast feels delicious.

Last night

I

read a case history about deep brief

therapy, an approach that lasts a few sessions but pro-

foundly changes the clients involved.

It

bogus concept. Relationships take time.

me

as a

When we

sug-

struck

gest that high-quality advice can be given

conditions,

we undercut what we can 25

under rushed

offer people

—

Mary Pipher

calm place to carefully explore their more, we are rant about

likely to

many

radical advice

harm people

situations. Further-

if,

while

aspects of their lives,

we

are igno-

we jump

in with

and grandiose plans to transform them.

The case history concerned an African-American woman who was living with a man she didn't particularly like

and working

at a job she hated.

on antidepressants and described miserable.

The

to her at a funeral.

comment her mother had made

He

seized

cause of his client's depression.

He

feelings.

his client's friends.

herself as chronically

therapist asked about her family and

she recalled a hurtful

permanently

She had been

on that remark

He

felt

as the

the mother had

her

stifled his client's ability to express

ignored other possible problems, such

bad

job, unresponsive partner,

as

and lack of

For that matter, he didn't look into her exercise

habits, alcohol

and drug use, or the significant prob-

lems facing black

women

in this country. Instead,

he

helped his client get in touch with her rage against her mother. Based on the one remark from his therapist

demonized her mother

in order to

ture a brief, deep experience. What's picture?

With almost no

client, the

manufac-

wrong with

this

information, this therapist en-

couraged his client to rewrite her history and replan her future. Parenthetically, he discussed the importance of honoring subjective truth, a fuzzy phrase that describes

what

happened

clients feel

concept seems to

me

a

in the past.

prescription for trouble.

therapist built a skyscraper

on

26

a

meringue.

That

The

letters to a

Many

clients

come

young therapist

to us because their subjective

truths are twisted in ways that distort their lives.

our most important jobs subjective truths

to help clients

is

and replace them with

a

One

of

examine these

more

authentic

reality. I

like,

don't

know what

mother

the

in the case history

was

but neither did the client's therapist. All children

have grievances.

Shep Walker's

When

hood.

No

one

really feels understood. I love

line in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sister-

he was asked, "Did you get enough love?"

he answered, "What's enough?"

The

therapist

made

daughter was unhappy, fact,

the shaky assumption that it

must be the

if

the

family's fault. In

the relationship between parenting and successful

children

is

complex and unpredictable. Honest parents

don't always raise honest kids.

some women

I

One

of the most whole-

know grew up with an

Some

of the unhappiest adults I've met

tive,

child-focused

families.

alcoholic mother.

come from

sensi-

Well-meaning couples

sometimes have extraordinarily bad luck with their while slapdash parents

may

kids,

raise highly successful chil-

dren. In fact, in one family the siblings can cover the

mental health gamut.

Ever since Freud, psychologists have seen families hotbeds of pathology.

We

ret out the sick dynamics, istic

have taught therapists to

as

fer-

hidden messages, and unreal-

members.

We

recall slights, mistakes,

and

pressures that families inflict

have encouraged clients to

on

their

times they were hurt or misunderstood. During the

27

Mary Pipher

memory era, we even

recovered

remem-

"helped" clients

ber traumas they had forgotten. After thirty years as a therapist

happen

in families. I

once saw

I

know

terrible things

a hairdresser

mother who

got angry with her daughter and scalded her head.

I

have

counseled incest victims and children abandoned by their parents. I

when they

watched middle-aged businessmen cry

mean-

talked of their relationships with

spirited fathers.

But

also believe that

I

we

can't hate

our families without hating ourselves. Historically therapists have used the dysfunctional

family as an explanation for adult misery and failure. In

doing

this

we have

largely ignored the effects of culture

of meaningless jobs, long commutes, fears

sterile suburbs,

and

of poverty, war, violent death, and environmental ca-

And we have overlooked what

tastrophes.

known

Many friendly.

people have

makes most of us unhappy.

since time began: Life

of our psychological theories are not family

We

have used positive words such

omy" and "independence" words such closeness.

as

to praise distance

and negative

"codependent" and "enmeshed" to punish

With terms

framed many loving

and we have ut-

about the nature of love.

elaborated on what families do to people but

what

families

do for people.

aged clients to pursue their

We

we

We have

who

craves a

for attention, or a sibling

28

who

visit,

have

haven't

encour-

own dreams without

ering an aging grandmother

who yearn

we have

"emotional incest,"

like

acts as pathological

terly confused people

articulated

"auton-

as

consid-

children

needs an

ally.

letters to a

While also I

young therapist

families are imperfect institutions, they are

our greatest source of meaning, connection, and

remember

a

mother

in her early forties

and about to

whose three

the coop. She

kids

were

was

in therapy to deal with anticipatory grief.

"I

wish

I

keep us

in high school

She

said,

could build a moat around our acreage and just

all

together.

our daughter

call

fly

joy.

We have had such great times." I renuzzling into her father and

at five,

saying, "I'm melting into richness."

Of

course, as therapists

feelings.

make

And sometimes

discuss hurt and angry

need to

clients

set limits

and

position statements about what they will and won't

tolerate in their families.

to strengthen families.

abusive families is

we

family.

Even

we can

But our goal should always be

Even say,

from the most

for clients

"Find someone to love that

your second cousin twice removed,

if it is

seek out that person and build a family relationship.

Everyone needs Families

means

kin."

come

that the

one problem

is

to us

way

when they

the family

is

are stuck.

trying to solve at least

making things worse.

husband's attention so she complains.

and withdraws even

them

to talk to

further.

Or

Often that

A wife He

wants her

feels bullied

parents want a teenager

so they pester her for information and

she responds by becoming

more

secretive, so they pester

her more.

As

I

Wilsons. hair.

write about stuck families,

The dad was

I

a leather-clad biker

think of the

with curly red

His two sons wore the same black leather jackets

29

Mary Pipher

and had the same flowing red

curls.

The

family was in

therapy because, just like their father before them, the

The

boys were flunking out of high school.

parents in-

boys study, but the sons demonstrated their

sisted the

manhood and

their identification with their father

sisting school

and homework.

fice the

When they were in my of-

when

I

ran into them one afternoon at

Dairy Queen, they were laughing over banana

Then

re-

Wilsons spoke gravely of grades and teachers'

conferences. But a

by

splits.

they put on their helmets and roared off into the

sunset. Seeing the

me

reminded

that therapy

We

clients' lives.

Wilson family out

have

is

only

world

in the real

a small part

of our

not to screw up

a responsibility

the other parts that work.

Since

I

was in graduate school, our

slightly softened

its

positive psychology

field

may have

harsh views of families. We've had a

movement and many

clinicians

have

re-thought their attitudes. As the culture grows more toxic,

most

therapists are aware of the difficulties that

parents face.

We

many

see that

ported rather than analyzed.

families

Still,

need to be sup-

Laura, you will experi-

ence plenty of family bashing in supervision sessions, books, and classrooms.

urge you to take

I

it all

with a

full

shaker of salt. All families are a

mans

are a

little crazy.

their families

take

away

little

crazy,

but that

When we

because

30

who

hu-

from

responsibility. If we

what do we replace

people don't trust their families,

all

alienate clients

we assume an enormous

belief in family,

is

is it

it

with? If

they can trust?

letters to a

When

you

a client tells

that

you

derstanding than his wife, you can

you every morning

me a

are

much more un"But

say,

at the breakfast table.

to be detached. I only have to deal with

week and

yard."

don't have to convince

I

young therapist

don't see

I

It's

easier for

you one hour

you

to

mow

the

When a client begins, "I grew up in a dysfunctional

family,"

you can

what we

say, "Let's

your family.

call

not worry too

much about

What

happened?"

actually

When a client moans, "My parents are responsible for my despair," also talk

you can

say,

"We

can talk about

that,

but

we can

about what you can do to be happier."

Families for

all

their flaws are

one of our remaining

ancient and true shelters. Families, not therapists, will be there for our clients pital,

or need

if

they lose their jobs, go to the hos-

someone

to

show up

at their

naments. To quote poet Robert Frost,

when you have also

to

bowling tour-

"Home

is

go there they have to take you

where

in."

wrote in the same poem, families are "something

you somehow haven't

When

you

to deserve."

see families, don't forget that they have

solved a thousand problems without your help.

be seeing them in the February of their

lives,

You

but

it

fix

what

is

not broken.

31

will

won't

always be February. June will come. Tread lightly.

not

He

Do

5

Deepening Therapy

February 7

Dear Laura, I

was stranded for the

daughter's

home

in Iowa.

few days

last

As we snuggled

my

grand-

inside,

watch-

at

ing road reports on television and the blizzard outside,

never

felt

happier. Kate

the senses. She

is

is

an eight-month-old feast for

fun to touch, look

at,

she coos her various adorable sounds.

my

son dance with Kate

I

much

like

I

and

listen to as

enjoy watching

my

father danced

with me. Only Zeke and Kate dance to Van Morrison,

my father and I danced to Duke Ellington. In my granddaughter's eyes, I see the eyes

while

grandmother Glessie. In some of her gestures,

my mother.

After these

and about how, tions of

my

if I

am

family

visits, I

my

33

my

envision

think about time passing

lucky, I will

— from

I

of

know

seven genera-

Great-Granny Lee to

Mary Pipher

Kate's children. life. I

I

want Kate

use her

gifts in

think about the role

to

become

all

I

can play in her

she can be so that she can

the service of humankind.

Psychologist Frank Pittman

process

calls this lifelong

come

of development, "growing a soul." Clients usually to us with a specific problem.

been arrested for shoplifting, about

a

who

is

they've

can't sleep, or feel anxious

crappy job they are afraid to

from an eating or child

They come when quit.

They

suffer

disorder, or have a relationship derailing,

Generally they want to

failing in school.

alleviate their crises quickly

and with minimal

Sometimes we can help them do

that.

effort.

Other times, these

presenting problems are connected to everything

metaphors or symp-

Specific problems turn out to be

toms of much larger

A mother

else.

issues.

showed up

my office

at

with her son,

who

had been arrested for hacking into the school's computer

com-

system. This boy often stayed up at night playing

puter games.

He

had

a secret life,

puters, but also with friends,

not only with com-

money, and time. The

mother divorced years ago and the boy no longer knew his father.

They

lived far

from extended

family.

Formu-

lating solutions involved truly understanding this

her son, and the environment they functioned

Another heels,

and

a

woman

mom,

in.

dressed in tight blue jeans, high

low-cut sweater, complained that her hus-

band no longer spent time with was having an

affair.

She

her.

said, "I

every day and weigh exactly what

34

I

She suspected he

work out

at the

gym

weighed when we got

letters to a

married." She added, "If he to

myself."

kill

your

I

is

asked her,

having an

"What

young therapist

affair, I

am going

do you have

else

in

besides your husband?"

life

Deepening therapy involves taking surface complaints

and connecting them to deeper

times

requires confrontive questions such

feel

it

you have been

a

issues. as,

Some-

"Do you

good father?" Other times

volves soothing questions such

as, "Isn't it

More

give yourself for this?"

it

in-

time to for-

philosophical clients

eventually arrive at Paul Gauguin's famous questions:

"Where do we come from?

Who

are

we? Where are we

going?"

Most

children receive feedback about their behavior,

but generally adults are on their own.

"You

with your mouth

talk

full," "Sit

need to comb your hair and put on

No one tells them, up

"You

straight,"

a different shirt," or

"Stop sulking when you don't get your way." Clients think, feel,

do

in real

and behave in therapy

life.

We

same ways they

in the

can be of great service to them

if

can figure out what they most need to hear and then

them

in a

way that

allows

them

I

worked with

a

CEO

considered people interesting objects designed to

serve and entertain him.

had

tell

to listen.

That doesn't always happen.

who

we

a

hard time keeping

Donald came

women

in his

in because

life.

He

had an

easy time attracting

them and even getting them

bed. But

"The only ones who

as

he put

it,

stick

have cash registers for hearts." Once after session,

which

at that

a

to

around therapy

time cost $45, Donald handed

35

he

me a

Mary Pipher

hundred dollar shoved to

"Who

are the people

How

will

your

life

What difference will you

have made to the earth?"

bombed with Donald. He had

I

respected Donald

Trump and

once or twice

many people fondly.

a year

world

in his

making money.

Bill

Gates, but re-

his life

most sadly and

said,

all

holidays.

There weren't

when

would make.

"None of

asked him about

I

He

looked

was

just

As

a

me

al-

worm's meat." That was an answer we could

needs quickly enough and he

his

at

us matters in the end.

have discussed had he stayed in therapy. But

meet

he had

as nuisances

who would remember him

did feel a bit of hope

I

what difference

We're

on

system in

a value

to

garded his parents and adult siblings to see

you

be remembered by oth-

which relationships were secondary

He

I

you trying

are

and respect? Are there any people who care

about you?

But

"What

this relationship?"

truly love

ers?

asked,

posed questions to him:

I

"Keep the change."

said,

money back and

his

do to

and

bill

one more service worker who beginning therapist,

variants of the question,

how do you

feel

left.

let

I

couldn't

In the end,

I

him down.

was trained to ask many

I

"How

did others treat

about that?" Over the years

you and

my

job has

evolved into helping people think about the effects of their behaviors on others. did

you

treat others

Good

Now I am

and

how did

likely to ask,

you make them

"How

feel?"

therapy should rearrange the landscape of the

mind. After therapy, people ently.

more

Behavior

may

change.

36

live in the

A

client

world

who

differ-

always asso-

letters to a

ciated anger with violence

may

learn that anger can be

and

discussed. Often people think

wife accepts that her husband's

who

she wants

way of showing

him

The

feel differently.

by running errands. The daughter can never be

young therapist

love

is

realizes her father

to be, but that she can

enjoy him anyway.

about balance.

all

It's

I

encourage anxious, timid

people to become stronger and bolder.

cho

men a man who

be gentler and

Ken,

you

expressive.

women.

I

I

remember

Ken

al-

Ask yourself before

drink, or gamble, or have sex with a stranger?"

couraged

ma-

encouraged him to slow

"What could you

asked him,

I

try to help

could never outrun his appetites for

cohol, gambling, and

down.

more

I

I

en-

to spend a few minutes a day sitting alone

with no distractions, breathing slowly, and noticing his feelings.

Ken

finally did,

his internal feelings,

deeply feared slowing down, and

he was depressed by the wasteland that was life.

After a few weeks of experiencing sad

he began to make slightly better decisions.

Many rigid

thinkers see only extremes as possible so-

lutions to problems. tions. I ask,

I

push them to consider other op-

"Are there aspects of

overlooking? ently?"

Once

He

I I

wonder

if

this

problem you are

others might see this differ-

saw an old man whose son never came to

could only imagine two choices for him-

visit

him.

self:

disowning

his

son or giving

after his death. I asked

part of your estate?

you

when he

all

his

money to

the

boy

him, "Could you bequeath him

Could you perhaps

are lonely?"

37

tell

your son that

Mary Pipher

ask busy people to slow

I

down and people with

nating lives to get something cooking.

and calm down

slugs

own

who

try to energize

I

are addicted to their

adrenaline. Sad people sometimes need help ex-

pressing anger.

row with

"Start ten sentences in a

I say,

the opening words, I

clients

stag-

am

'I

angry about.

.'" .

.

Conversely,

encourage angry people to experience the deep sadness

that lies

under anger.

more than anger?" carefully

and

I

I ask,

"What

feeling hurts even

suggest impulsive people think

I

encourage ruminators to take action.

to help selfish people be

more thoughtful and

and

I

Together

search for the golden mean.

Years ago

made

I

a

speech in Japan.

that in the Japanese language there are

I

was impressed

many words

describe having two or even three feelings at once.

has only a few such words, "bittersweet,"

lish

"poignant." But in

more than one

am

fact,

thing.

relieved to be in

When I am

goodbye.

sympathetic that he sunset,

joy at

my

its

try

self-sacri-

ficing people to take better care of themselves. clients

I

most of the time we

When I my quiet

that

Eng-

maybe

are feeling

leave a family reunion, I

car and sad to be saying

angry with

my husband, I am

may be doing

his best.

also

Watching

a

heart can break two ways at the same time:

beauty and sorrow

at the shortness

of life. Even

though English doesn't have beautiful Japanese feeling words, that

we can

help clients describe the skeins of feelings

make up complex emotional

states.

We

can ask,

"What

other feelings are you having right now?"

we

we

do,

take things to another level.

38

When

young therapist

letters to a

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote,

crammed with heaven." The value

life

in

all its

I get,

manifestations, the

seems to be granted the

and green planet.

older

The

gift

"The

earth

the

more

more precious

I

I it

of time on our great blue

biggest tragedy for

me

is

when

something beautiful wants to grow and something stops

is

else

it.

my

want

human who want that

loves the world and works to save

for

my cooing,

granddaughter, Kate, to blossom into a

all

my clients.

It's

it.

And

I

easier to see potential in

dancing granddaughter, but

it is

there in the

CEO who tried to leave a tip and in the entitled teenager who complained

about her parents. Laura, in

the potential to be good

is

there, if only

take the time to help us discover

39

it

all

of

someone

and make

it

us,

will

bloom.

6

Connecting the Dots

February 28

Dear Laura, I

can describe

were tanned, with

my

They and wormy blue

mother's hands perfectly.

freckles, liver spots,

The fingernails were Her translucent skin, as

veins snaking across their backs. clean, unpainted,

and cut

short.

thin as paper, slipped over the delicate bones

backs of her hands.

because

I

can describe her hands so precisely

my mother's hands

Time moves

are

my hands now.

on. In families and professions, one

generation replaces another. pists

Many

of our great thera-

have retired or died. At one time, there were

therapists

who

flew by the seat of their

own

Fritz Perls, Carl Whitaker, Sal Minchin, Satir

on the

come

to mind.

gurus, had a

way of

many

charisma.

and Virginia

Milton Erickson, the greatest of

all

cutting through Gordian knots by

41

Mary Pipher

making

droll observations.

bled therapist

him

giving

Once he transformed

who had come

him

to

a trou-

for supervision

a posthypnotic suggestion to

climb a

by

moun-

tain.

As

a

young therapist,

I

was seduced by wizardry, but

I

gradually realized that elaborate strategies, duplicitous

my

techniques, and complicated paradoxes are not strong

suits.

ods are

I'm not sexy or edgy. Straightforward meth-

less likely to

they feel more respectful.

would want turn to I

to be treated.

more

me

bewilder I

my

or

try to treat clients the

Only if these methods

are

homework

—have some

cise. I

way

I

do

I

fail

sophisticated techniques.

do bread-and-butter work.

I

celebrate victories and

record happy events as well as troubles. give

clients. Plus,

assignments. fan,

do

a

My

I

almost always

generic assignments

good deed, and get some exer-

save the last few minutes of each session to discuss

our hour together.

we worked

I ask,

"How

do you

together today?" "Did

feel

about

we make

a

how

dent in

your problems?" I

low

disconnect

cell

phones

my phone during sessions and I don't alor pagers. When clients arrive rushed and

stressed, I suggest

we

sit

few moments before we

quietly and breathe deeply for a

Likewise,

talk.

sobbing, I've learned to wait. don't need to constantly times,

when

will sigh

it's

fill

when people

Therapy

isn't radio.

the air with sounds.

quiet, surprising things

42

Some-

A woman husband. A

happen.

and admit she no longer loves her

are

We

letters to a

man

goes away

is

we

if

and sound

is

noisy. In

bites, therapists

work

"We

an era of nanoseconds in real time.

slow people

speed of wisdom." With our tone, words,

To quote

down

Whatever happens we can handle is

of therapy

to the

facial expres-

and body posture, we convey, "We're in

Persistence

Some

and

don't answer the door.

friend Vicki Robin,

gether.

."

.

very polite. She knocks softly and then

Outside America

sions,

this.

cry.

Inspiration

my

never told anyone

will whisper, "I

begin to

young therapist

this to-

it."

an underrated virtue in our profession. is

just plain plodding.

eating journals of bulimic

women,

Looking

at the

talking to a depressed

college student about exercise, or checking with a

mother on her use of time-outs

making magic or

like

—these things don't

yield impressive

workshop

feel

videos.

But, like brushing teeth and eating fresh vegetables, they matter.

Change

that looks too

Just as there

is

tion. I favor

Dr. Suzuki,

tery.

to be true

free lunch, there

incremental change.

who

dren to play are small

no

good

is

no

most

My model

for this

is

developed a method for teaching chil-

classical

music.

He

discovered that

People rarely try to take giant fall

is.

free transforma-

enough anyone could move forward

they often

likely

down. The

trick

is

steps,

43

steps

into masif

they do

finding the step size

that propels people forward but allows

with each move.

and

if

them

to succeed

Mary Pipher

A person who

is

always turning a corner often finds

himself driving around the same block. clients,

"Don't rush and don't stop."

will continue. I

you went

ally like it that

That shows

encourage

what

I

hope

a troubled teenager, "I re-

to school

when you

felt tired.

real maturity."

inquire,

I

might say to

I

I praise

"What

chronically mentally psychiatrist.

The

has worked before?"

ill

me

clients told

One

of

of going to a

my

new

doctor had a two-feet-tall pile of her

treatment records on his desk. But he didn't open the

he asked

charts. Instead

my

client,

any medications that worked?" a

matter of fact

drugs.

The

I

"Have you ever had

My client answered,

have," and told

him

exactly the

"As

mix of

doctor wrote her a prescription for them and

she began to improve immediately.

embed

I

positive thoughts

and suggestions into ques-

— "How can you use your strengths to solve

tions

this

How will you know when you have truly made progress? How many times a day do you laugh?

problem?

some

How would

a close friend

would change

if

improve your situation?

you stopped

What

run your

letting the kids

life?" I

and

often ask clients to bring in pictures of their families

significant others. Usually people look different than I

had pictured them or than

The

evil father

my client had

The dominating and eager to please. The

looks like a sick old man.

mother looks self-deprecating

handsome boyfriend looks sistible.

described them.

Photos often give

slovenly, homely, clients a

44

and

memory

totally re-

jolt

and they

young therapist

letters to a

share fresh observations and

and

client

look

I feel

On

Usually both the

stories.

more accountable

at pictures.

show me

new

to the family after

the other hand,

many

we

times clients

pictures of themselves smiling and then say, "I

was actually miserable behind-the-scenes ing goes on,

stories.

and

literally

Then

in that picture."

I'm convinced that figuratively,

they'll tell

a lot

of pos-

during picture tak-

ing.

Sometimes "I can't allow

smoking family.

you

Do you think that is

and

With

still

I've

had to

say,

you

are

to drive a school bus while

pot." Or, "Your wife

everything. tive

must be challenged.

clients

is

doing

fair?"

With

a gentle caring tone,

maintain

the

all

work in your

challenges, tone

we

is

can be confron-

warm relationships with our clients.

Refraining can inspire change. If a mother and

daughter fight

all

the time,

I

might

say, "It

looks like you

both work constantly to stay connected to each other."

About

a

stubborn child,

I

ance will serve him later in

man who

I

can

lovely reminder that

I

say,

you

properly applied."

To

a

stifling

yawns with

"Every day she gives you

a

are not alone."

have learned to attend

was

life if

complains that his wife always messes up the

morning paper,

I

can remark, "This persever-

my own feelings.

a client, I

If I noticed

would ask myself,

"Is

the client talking without thinking, or repeating old statements we've both heard before?"

Once

my

fast

session in

which

about superfluities. chatter

is

client

was talking

I said, "I

a diversion

I

stopped a

and nonstop

have the feeling

all this

of some type. What's going on?"

45

Mary Pipher

My client fell silent and, for a moment, she looked as if I had shot "I

Then

her.

she said softly and for the

first

time,

want out of my marriage." Laura, pay attention to your

them

in the session.

clients are

most

The

likely the

someone always

irritates

own

feelings

you have

reactions

same ones

and use to

your

that others have. If

you with no-shows,

lateness, or

forgotten checks and assignments, that's information

about

why they have

We time

can help clients look through the

—the

every

trouble in relationships.

past, present,

moment

of our

and future.

The

triple lens

past informs

As we say to young

lives.

with eating disorders, "Nobody eats alone."

"Does the way your dad handled

stress

yourself with your daughter?" Or,

you

are

making today going

Humans do

three things

—we

women

We can ask,

remind you of

"How

to affect

of

is

the choice

your future?"

think, feel,

and behave.

Often humans are compartmentalized and don't connect the dots between these activities. This compartmentalization can be dangerous. People can feel angry and dis-

couraged and not connect that feeling with their heavy drinking and television watching.

Our

best

work

helps clients

you think your depression

is

make

related to

connections.

your cutting bene-

to the workers at your factory?" Or, "Are

fits

that

you think

spend very that

a

"Do

you aware

great deal about your son but you actually

little

time with him?" And, "Did you notice

whenever your wife

leaves

46

town you play poker?" Or,

young therapist

letters to a

"Have you observed ter,

that

when you talk about your daugh-

you hold your arms over your heart?" If the secret

of successful real estate

tion, location, the secret

of our work

We thinking. We

need

connection.

nection,

behavior, and

a highly sensitive client,

connect

to

want our

anxiety.

awash

location, loca-

connection, con-

is

Miriam,

I recall

in feelings

affect,

connected

clients

and to other people.

to us, their families,

bound from

is

and house-

She loved to process her emotions,

but she needed to do something different.

I

encouraged

her to take small but courageous actions. She could walk to the grocery store a couple of blocks

She could

call

to think, not

mended

her friends on the phone.

feel better. I

recom-

I

life.

she could write out

would perhaps allow her

by being aware of this

sessions

triangle of affect, behavior, is

Then

to

encouraged her to sign up for yoga.

You can unstick

talking too

much

clients'

ABC

and cognition. Whenever

in

one dimension, ask about

the other two dimensions. Another

connect

she needed

she write out her feelings and the irrational

rational thoughts that

anyone

And

emote her way through

thoughts that triggered them.

more

from her house.

way

to help

is

to

present with the past or future.

In tragic situations, talking about good times can be therapeutic.

When my

many months

mother was dying, she spent and often

in a hospital, in pain, vomiting,

unable to sleep. Toward the end,

night with her,

when

we happened upon

tended she wasn't in

a hospital.

47

We

I

a

often stayed the

game.

were on

a

We

pre-

camping

Mary Pipher

trip, like

many we had

taken to the Rocky Mountains.

I

told her to smell the pine trees and breathe the cool

mountain

The bubbling

air.

a waterfall, the

bed

of her oxygen machine was

a sleeping bag,

and the ceiling

sparkled with constellations. She smiled and drifted off

counting

My

stars.

generation's wave will be the next to break

the shore. Soon, Laura, you'll be doing the

now.

I

hope

this advice helps

those you see.

48

work

you enrich the

I

lives

on do of

Part

II:

Spring

7

Pain

March

23

Dear Laura,

Jim and

I

returned from our annual trip to see

just

the migrating sandhill cranes. It was a cold, drizzly

trip.

Except for the occasional blaze of forsythia, Nebraska

was dressed

in earth tones

—

oyster,

brown,

Most people would complain about no bad weather,

hold that there

is

joy the earth in

all

By yesterday

tan,

and

gray.

that weather, but

just

bad clothes.

I

I

en-

her costumes.

there were a half million cranes roost-

ing on the Platte River. As a species, they are almost as old as the

when

it

Rocky Mountains. They flew over Nebraska

was an inland

dance in the cornfields;

sea.

at sunset,

the Platte forming their river.

They

trill

a call,

During the day the cranes

own

which

thousands wheel onto

dark islands in the quiet naturalist Paul

Gruchow

described as "the sound of something you heard before

51

Mary Pipher

you were born."

They put my

cient rituals.

stead of

making me

now you

Right

and

in perspective. In-

little life

feel insignificant,

of something

like a small part

clients

find comfort in observing their an-

I

they

make me

infinite.

working with several traumatized

are

encourage you to go see the cranes

I

feel

as a

way

to relax.

Years ago

was

a social

I

worked with

named Lorena. She

worker who loved to sing and dance to folk

A single

music.

a client

mother, she lived with her three kids in

one of our poorest neighborhoods. what she

I

saw her during

called "the year of the locusts."

daughter had a seizure

She

epilepsy.

lost

her dad died of

The Then at bus.

first

at school

Her youngest

and was diagnosed with

her closest friend to breast cancer and

a heart attack

time

I

saw her

while trying to catch the all

she could do was

cry.

the end of our session she dried her tears,

thanked me, and

said, "I

thought

I

wanted to come.

I

needed to come."

For it,

a time,

sorrow overwhelmed Lorena. As she put

she "trudged through a gray tapioca fog." But she was

a strong

woman and

she gradually learned to accept

all

her feelings rather than run from them.

Many

people have years of tough times.

talking to a

I

young Kurdish refugee about her work. Her

back and shoulders ached from long days in

pery locker about

this

"Never

in

remember

at a

meat packing

plant.

not being an easy time for

my life

have

I

I

a cold, slip-

said

her.

Jabha replied,

had one day that was

5 2

something

easy."

letters to a

In Another Country,

I

young therapist

wrote about Alma, aged

eighty-two, widowed, going deaf, and almost blind

from

She

diabetes.

lived with her

profoundly retarded,

sixty-year-old daughter in a small house. But

what needed

cheerfully did

to be done.

Alma

She made friends

with her postman, neighbors, and visiting nurses. She played practical jokes on her family and even on

when

stopped

I

by. (It

was actually the

whoopee cushion on

had ever put

a

feared what

would happen

first

me

time anyone

my chair.)

Still,

Alma

to her daughter if she died

first.

If you are

paying attention to the world you see a lot

of pain. I

remember

on the

the tear-stained faces of two clients

surface couldn't have been

more

different

each other. Francesca was in therapy after

himself. Francesca

who

was

from

a brutal date

SueAnne came because her husband had

rape.

who

just killed

a beautiful, dark-haired

woman

ran the admissions program at a local university.

Sophisticated and articulate, she could process her pain

almost without

redhead

my

help.

who answered

SueAnne was an extroverted

telephones for a living.

By nature

she was a smart aleck, unaccustomed to discussing her private feelings.

Tuesday

at 3:00

For months

I

will

cried.

saw SueAnne every

followed by Francesca at 4:00.

In their sessions they did

They

I

They

raged.

much

the same things.

They worried about

their kids.

never forget Francesca's description of being

thrown into

a

cement

wall,

having her teeth broken, of

53

Mary Pipher

and ready to

feeling cold

die. I

won't forget SueAnne's

account of telling her five-year-old twins that their father

was dead. One of them asked, "But

he'll

come home

tomorrow, right?"

SueAnne and Francesca

my

office,

but

like

carried great burdens into

Alma, they made the best of their

In the end, they discovered that the terrible

fates.

events had changed

good ways,

them

forever, in sad ways, but in

was stronger

too. Francesca learned she

than she thought. "If you can survive

life,

you can

survive

anything," she admitted.

SueAnne

realized that she wasn't to

blame for her

husband's death, that whatever her failings were as a wife, ultimately her

choices.

And

made them ago.

I

easier to bear.

She

left

hope she remembers that

therapy a long time

lesson.

craziness in the world

and frenetic

tions,

for his

she discovered that sharing her feelings

Most of the

pain.

husband was responsible

Many of the

activity

—violence, addic-

—comes from running from

world's biggest bullies and worst mass

murderers have acted to avoid confronting their own painful feelings. is

The

only thing worse than feeling pain

not feeling pain. Healthy people face their pain.

they are sad, they

cry.

When

they are angry, they ac-

knowledge they are angry. They don't pretend only PG-rated feelings.

They

When

to have

don't judge their feelings.

Rather, they simply observe and describe them.

Of

course,

clients I

it isn't

quite that simple.

I

have seen

simply could not comfort. For several months

54

I

letters to a

worked with

a

young therapist

woman who had been orphaned when

she

was very young. She desperately wanted nurturance, but she was so prickly that

could never

I

hour without offending

me

undigested, angry with

who

let

My

learn

from

life

My

all

her pain

and

ill

By

one who can

is

As an old man who

daughter, poet Robert

a

sum up everything he knew

in three words, "It goes on."

hero

with an

through the

one more person

for being

experiences.

all

Frost said that he could

lawn.

with

definition of a healthy person

lost his wife, a son,

about

left

it

her down.

grow and had

She

her.

make

is

my Aunt

Grace,

who was

in her eighties

husband when her son died while mowing her

the time

I

called her, she

had already organized

herself mentally. She told me, "We'll just have to love

and take care of the ones Laura, this suffering.

My

is

who

are left."

not to say that the learning

justifies

heart ached for Lorena, Francesca, and

SueAnne. But, helped by tincture of time, they

what they needed I

hope

the

all

found

to heal.

this letter inspires

Standing on the bridge,

you

to

go see the cranes.

as the cranes settled in,

shivered and stomped our feet to fight the

tangerine sunset,

a

half

chill.

we

After a

moon shone down on

the

Platte, its reflection spotlighting the black island of birds.

The wind blew through

the cottonwoods.

We

listened as the cranes tucked each other in with their soft

murmuring. Our

later,

driving

home

faces

in

our

55

ached with the cold. But

warm

car,

sharing cheese

Mary Pipher

sandwiches and apples,

we

felt

connected to Mother Earth.

56

happy, whole, and

re-

8

Happiness

April 14

Dear Laura, April

is

my

favorite time to visit the

Ozarks

morel mushrooms are sprouting, the bass are the pink and white

dogwoods cover the

gumdrops. As always field

Opry. This

rium,

that

is

I

features

housed

old-fashioned

in

biting,

hills like

spend Saturday night

a free show,

— the

its

at the

own

and

giant

Old-

audito-

country music,

cornball comedy, and clog dancers aged five to ninetyfive.

Family and friends of the musicians serve the

crowds chilidogs, chips, and the best

raisin pie in the na-

tion.

My cousin

Steve

is

a

founding

which has been going on

Johnny Walker, about

member

for years.

His close friend,

sings and tells jokes,

my cousin, whom he

calls

57

of the Opry,

many

of them

"Smilin' Steve." Johnny

Mary Pipher

and Steve played together in rock-and-roll bands thirty

Johnny has

years ago in high school. ease and

is

now on

degenerative dis-

a

oxygen, almost blind, and paralyzed

He

from the neck down.

spends

a great deal

of time in

the hospital battling respiratory infections, but whenever

he can make dresses

him

it,

Johnny

is

on the Opry

His dad

stage.

and cowboy

in his country western clothes

boots and helps the musicians carry him to his chair.

Johnny welcomes the crowd and emcees the Unable

to

move and

built a life that centers

losing his speech,

on music, but

of Ozark Mountain counseling. his

house to

if Johnny

talk.

They leave

Johnny

is

living

come by

people

feeling better, thinking that

surely they can

life,

theirs.

proof of what research shows: Hap-

piness bears almost

no relationship

to

good fortune.

Rich people are not happier than poor ones. tend to maintain

Johnny has

also involves a kind

Many

can cheerfully handle his

buck up and cope with

event.

a set

We humans

point of happiness, staying at

about the same level of happy or sad regardless of cumstances.

Winning

cir-

the lottery or having a cancer di-

agnosis changes this happiness quotient for only a very

short time. As

about

as

happy

my as

Uncle Otis put

they

make up

it,

their

"Most people

minds

are

to be."

Research documents that the more time people spend with other people, the better they

feel.

play a critical role in well-being. Surprisingly,

women

are equally happy.

On

contradicts research that shows

58

Friends

men and

the surface this finding

women

report

more de-

letters to a

women also report more joy. They than men about all of their emotional

However,

pression.

more

are

young therapist

intense

states.

As

a

group, married people are happier than single

ones; religious people are happier than nonreligious ones; and people working toward goals report greater

happiness than

In

drifters.

fact,

of working toward goals even

people enjoy the process

more than they do reach-

ing them. Freud once described a

man

"wrecked by

as

success." I've noticed a funny kind of sorrow

and empti-

who have met all their goals. Unless redefine new goals that are meaningful to them,

ness in people

they

can

they

are lost. I

often suggest to depressed clients that they volun-

teer at a soup kitchen.

once arranged for

work

at a rest

They perk up and

a rebellious, lonely

feel luckier. I

teenage

home. Garnett was too stubborn

the cooperative patients the nurses

girl to

to assist

recommended.

In-

stead she chose Mr. Bottler, a mean-spirited and cantan-

kerous

octogenarian.

assaulted

ing

him with her

For several weeks, idiosyncratic

—loud MTV viewing,

methods of bond-

offers to paint his fingernails

black, gifts of Rolling Stone magazines,

food, peanut butter and

dill

and her favorite

pickle roll ups.

old guy begged the nurses to get rid of her.

but Garnett kept slipping

Garnett

At

first,

They

in. Finally, after a battle

the

tried,

of the

Titans, Mr. Bottler caved and talked to Garnett. She talked back and, almost in spite of themselves, the

59

two

Mary Pipher

became

but

nett,

My work was just beginning with

friends.

One

this victory

was

Gar-

a start.

of the best things you can do for clients

courage them to develop

a

good

set

is

en-

of routines. These

could include activities such as meditation, massages,

and

exercise.

on the way

coffee

noon

Walking the family

to work, lunch

tea with a loved one, a

monthly

visit to

teammates, or

a

beagle, buying a cup of

by

a fountain, after-

weekly jog with

friends, a

grandparents, a yearly reunion with old

backpacking

trip to the

mountains

these rituals give clients something to look forward to

all

the time.

Ted Kooser's book

Local Wonders begins with an old

Bohemian proverb, "When God wishes

lose his

donkey and

again." But, satisfying lives are about

much more

heart of a poor man, find

it

He makes him

than the absence of tragedy.

what we have. Poet what

to rejoice the

finds

Bill

They are about appreciating

Kloefkorn

you when you

says,

are loafing

up

"Happiness to

is

your poten-

tial."

teach clients that there are

I

many

kinds of love.

It's

important to love more than one person, and to have

good and

friends

and close connections to neighbors,

friends. I caution,

way of making diversified."

a living.

"Don't have

just

family,

one hobby or

Like a good stock portfolio, be

Happiness comes from making good

choices. Integrity, energy, perseverance, and courage

contribute. In short, happiness structure, work, health,

is

related to character

and relationships.

60

all

young therapist

letters to a

Laura, most people might read this and

say, "I

know

that already." But in fact, our culture constantly misleads

us about happiness, and

we

psychologists have some-

times been a part of the miseducation. Especially in the

1960s and 1970s therapists encouraged

a

shallow defini-

tion of happiness that was essentially, "You'll be

you do your own

Now we

get

it,

recommend

that

contentment, an underappreciated goal, bliss.

Although

contentment

pleasures

if

thing."

can be counterculture and

clients seek

rather than

happy

— stories

is

more

bliss is great

achievable.

around

when you can

We can pitch old

shared meals, good

fires,

books, and beautiful music, whether

it's

African drums

or Bach concertos.

When Walker

think about happiness

I

all

Opry

dressed up on the

his oxygen,

I

imagine Johnny

stage, temporarily off

but with his shiny canister nearby.

He is pok-

ing fun at Steve and has the crowd and the musicians laughing.

He

is

delicately soliciting donations for people

whose houses have burned down or who have and no health insurance.

nodding cial"

him

his

I

picture

his eyes shut,

head and smiling to "Orange Blossom Spe-

and afterward smacking a piece

him with

sick kids

his lips as his

of homemade raisin pie.

6

1

mother feeds

9

Metaphor

April 16

Dear Laura, Last night an unseasonable blizzard blew into Lincoln.

the

The day

and the sky glistened robin's tgg blue. As

fifties

grasses

and raked,

their sinuous this

before the temperatures had soared into

morning

to relocate

Spring

I

Vs and I

I

cut

could hear geese moving north in a cardinal in

my crabapple tree.

But

can only hear a crow cawing. We'll have

our snow shovel.

is

hope, birth, and the return of joy. All humans,

not just poets, are metaphor-generating creatures. referred to rich people

as,

My dad

"prosperous as Baptist boodeg-

My Aunt Margaret called television, "Manure garnished with parsley." My neighbor once described his son, gers."

who was

preternaturally lucky,

pig slop and

as,

coming out wearing

63

a

"Falling in a bucket of

new suit."

Mary Pipher

Nietzsche wrote,

Good

metaphors."

"Truth

mobile army of

a

is

therapists keep a toolbox filled with

well-polished metaphors. Life can be compared to a

book, a dance, a journey, a day, a pop quiz, a song, climbing a ladder, a

feast, a jail

opinion,

best not likened to

sentence, or a garden. In

my

sports,

much

overused comparisons that distort our worldviews.

They

frame

life is

life as

losing.

competitive, violent, and about winning and

While

frame the

From

war or

partly true,

human

not the most helpful way to

it's

experience.

the beginning,

used the metaphor of a cut

I

finger to discuss the importance of allowing oneself to

experience feelings.

ashamed of

I

would say

his tears, "If

You may not

When

deal with wounds."

but unhappy professor,

and

still

flunk

life."

you cut your finger

but

like blood,

I

To an

to a middle-aged banker

the

it is

it

bleeds.

way healthy bodies

talking to a high achieving

might

say,

executive

"You can get

who

is

making

all Ajs

half a

million dollars a year but facing an angry family and sullen employees, I

might

can win the rat race and I tell a

"You are

aged

need

a little rain to

be a

still

factory worker

father,

steal Lily

who

Tomlin's

cliff I'll

you

fall,

at the

a

lives

with her brain-dam-

a flower in the desert. You only

blossom into

big mistake,

stay in contact.

but

I

We

can't stop

bottom of the

"You

rat."

all

your beauty. You're

strong and self-reliant, but rain would help."

about to make

line,

I say, "If

To

a

you jump

person off that

can have some great talks

as

you from crashing and burning

valley."

Metaphors

64

fall flat

on

their

young therapist

letters to a

some

faces with thinker,

compared

I

Once, with

clients. life

to a journey.

rather concrete

a

He

responded by

and

saying, "I can't afford a vacation this year." Refugees

others for

whom

English

second or third language

a

is

also easily get lost with metaphors.

simple as as,

"life is a

are like pebbles

I

sleep

on

as

flowers?".

of my metaphors are hokey or

Some

metaphor

a

bed of roses" can lead to question such

"Do Americans

years.

Even

trite,

but the best

whose rough spots smooth down over the

They grow rounder and more simply true.

am

thinking about your

in a canoe, pulled

client's

under water by

a

dream

that he

was

shark that held the

towline in his teeth. You did a fine job analyzing that

dream, which has the potential to be an extended metaphor. Your client right now,

and

is

experiencing

his little boat

is

a

rough patch

about to be pulled under

in spite of his efforts to paddle. Metaphorically, he

rounded by sharks. Solutions can be couched such

as,

in

is

sur-

terms

"You are managing to out-swim the sharks,"

or,

"You see an island up ahead."

Dreams no expert

often provide economical metaphors. I'm

dream work and

in

own

I

generally encourage

clients to

do

their

speak for

all

the characters in their dreams.

interpretation.

I

invite I

them ask

to

how

they feel about events in their dreams and what real-life events

come

to

mind

Words spoken aloud bolic,

pret

and

them

I

as

in

they describe their feelings.

dreams are often deeply sym-

suggest clients say them out loud and inter-

for

me.

65

Mary Pipher

Natalie, an English major in her late twenties, hadn't

found work or peer relationships that were sustaining.

She had recurring dreams in which she couldn't walk.

Sometimes the

floors

times, her legs

were rubbery or paralyzed. Or, she was

were covered

in oil or glue.

Other

wearing iron boots or was tied to a stone. Often in her

dreams she would shout,

"I can't walk."

metaphor became shorthand tion.

for us to discuss her situa-

As Natalie found her way

in

flected that progress. In fact, they

distance she was

Another

with an ever-growing ets,

and unanswered

car keys.

pile

goals.

of unpaid

letters.

bills,

He lost jobs,

He schlepped through his life,

him

by, it

for

week

that

parking tick-

and

girlfriends,

either pondering

Opportunity not only

all.

ran circles around him. Arthur de-

man

scribed himself as "a

ment

her dreams re-

was chronically ineffectual

decisions too long or not at

passed

life,

were yardsticks for the

moving toward her

client, Arthur,

This succinct

with no hands."

My

assign-

Arthur was, "Keep a record of every time

this

you use your hands."

Seven-year-old Martha, a victim of sexual abuse in her family, called herself a

stuffing has fallen out.

broken teddy

I'm

dirty

You know your metaphors embellish

them

bear.

She

said,

"My

and no one wants me." are

to describe their

working when

own

experience.

clients

By

the

end of therapy, conversations may mostly be metaphorical. I

Is

can

ask,

"Did you work with your hands

your canoe above water?" Clients can

dream of walking,"

or,

this

say, "I

"My teddy bear has new 66

week?

had

a

friends."

letters to a

young therapist

Families often select objects to represent them.

way

these totemic items are treated

Our

treat themselves.

and

half-blind, lame,

irritable.

But he

common. Foods such

She held

flight.

on her

it

is

admired, coddled,

who

as I

all

family

control,

saw

I

family

a

and distance

negotiating to shout,

who

saw an older

woman

lap for our cross-country

—

who

discussed

in terms of cars.

all

love."

issues

We

—

I

wanted

about something besides

talk

love,

spent hours

could drive which car where.

"Could you

mem-

barbecue and pie are

She told me, "This cake was baked with

Once

is

an angel food cake with chocolate

a plane carrying

frosting.

is

Recendy

often metaphors for love.

board

families

neighbor's old cocker spaniel

and much discussed, because he bers love in

way

the

is

The

who

washed the car on Sunday? Could you debate anything but your son's speeding?"

more important ready there.

The

and sharing.

solved, family

When

tried to direct the family into

issues. Finally, I realized

When

As with

able.

drove what to

these issues were properly re-

problems were solved.

to metaphors.

what's

all

Make

power

most important,

Metaphors possess

the-blank quality that allows for

your

al-

straightforward language starts arguments, or

move

carefully.

they were

gas were about power, responsibil-

when language cannot touch time to

who

discussions about

work or who bought ity,

I

tools,

more

it's

a fill-in-

creative responses.

metaphors must be used

sure they have the effect of lightening

clients' loads

and making problems more manage-

Don't compare

a

harsh remark by an in-law to

67

Mary Pipher

murder, compare

it

metaphors

Dead words

fresh.

to a pebble in a sock.

smell bad.

don't use the same metaphors too

same

clients. I actually

many

And keep your Watch out and times with the

keep notes on the metaphors

have used and the ones clients generate. Once the

or

"when you cut your

maybe

it

me

To my chagrin,

a look of impatience.

never remember reading anything about metaphors

when

I

was

in graduate school, but over the years

found them to be indispensable for

employed

bleeds metaphor" twice,

three times, with the same client.

she flashed I

finger

I

I

your

clients'

tools.

My advice

I

have

is

look

metaphors and generate some of your

own. Assign yourself the task of generating three metaphors

a day.

Borrow mine and turn

exquisite ones. Let

among sharks" works I

me know how

"the sinking canoe

my study window. My

crocuses, like Easter eggs,

shimmer

lavender against the snow.

My

stein's

more

out for you.

can see the snow melting from

first salute.

to poets for

purple, yellow, and

eyes crave the daffodils'

Flowers poking through snow answer Ein-

most important question,

place or not?"

68

"Is the universe a friendly

10

Endurance

April 20

Dear Laura, Ugh! Last night I

dreamt

I

was

had forgotten

at

my

had another book- tour nightmare.

an airport on ticket.

At

But

member where

as I I

my way

first I

remedied by

lapse could be destination.

I

to a speech

wasn't too upset.

was going.

I

I

me

was pawing through

am

my

would en-

my destination. I woke up with my heart taste of metal in my mouth.

as to

racing and the I

my

couldn't re-

briefcase looking for any scrap of paper that

lighten

That

telling the airline clerk

approached the desk.

and

in the

middle of

a tour,

home

for Easter

end. After weeks of flying from city to

city,

week-

speeches

am slowly putting my life back together. The taste of my own cooking delights me. I love writing books, but I don't much care for even- night and room-service meals,

69

I

Mary Pipher

what

I

need to do to help

sell

them. There are two kinds

of writers, extroverts and introverts.

must bully themselves

ish the tours, but

The

to write.

The

extroverts rel-

into their offices

introverts love being alone at their desks,

but dread the tours. Guess which category

Book

tours are like going through your

over and over again. Like a bride, a writer

by admirers

in a

way

both

is

Except unlike the bride,

ing.

running

late, jet

"travail"

stressful

a writer

is

wedding day

is

surrounded

and exhilaratbadly dressed,

lagged, and hungry.

From my point and

that

am in?

I

of view,

come from

road warrior and

I

it is

the

no accident

that "travel"

same root word.

I

am

not

—

grow anxious about everything

a

icy

runways, lost luggage, car alarms in the middle of the

who

haven't read

my

books. But as Winston Churchill said,

"When you

are

night,

and interviews with people

going through

Humans lems

like

hell,

keep going."

encounter three kinds of problems. Prob-

speech phobias or unruly children are usually

solvable with information and effort. Others, such as eating disorders or entrenched marital problems, require sophisticated solutions.

And

that are simply not solvable cile

with

a

—

finally there are a child

problems

who will not recon-

loving family or the physical and mental

health suffering of old-old age.

With

the

first

kind of problem

we

ten be motivators. ("Let's teach you

therapists can of-

how

to

do time-outs

with your toddler and set up a star chart for rewarding

good behavior.") With the second, we can be outside-

70

letters to a

the-box thinkers. ("Maybe

if

every time you are tempted

you play some Chopin and think of every

to binge,

country in the world you would

meet problem

The

young therapist

three,

it's

time for endurance training.

capacity to tolerate pain and sorrow

appreciated virtue.

We

pain, to ask for help,

an under-

and to look for solutions

when

—

all

ap-

things are truly

best to speak of other things.

it is

is

teach our clients to process their

propriate lessons at times. But hopeless,

When you

like to visit.")

During the

Great Depression, our great-aunts didn't discuss their pocketbooks and empty kitchen shelves. Explorers in

flat

the Antarctic need not mention that ship ing,

is

it's

cold.

When

the

going down, passengers gain nothing by scream-

"We

are

all

going to

die."

In hard times, helpfulness, good cheer, dignity, and

forbearance emerge as stellar virtues.

mother was dying of cancer,

I

When my

grand-

complimented her on her

bravery and interest in others. She replied, "However behave,

I

the pain. this

am I

I

going to die soon. Complaining won't stop

might

as well

have the satisfaction of handling

with dignity."

No family

virtue

is

member

absolute.

Too much endurance

realistically,

prayer encourages. I

clients to assess a sit-

do what they can, and then accept

what they cannot. That

what

one

allows others to be slackers and induces

martyrdom. But we can encourage uation

in

"God

is

really

grant

me

what AA's serenity

the serenity to accept

cannot change, the courage to change what

and the wisdom to know the difference."

"l

I

can,

Mary Pipher

Of

course, Laura,

many

of our clients have

much

harder things to endure than book tours. Your client

Dana comes home from her job difficult

to

total attention.

life is

weep and

her

tips

customer service to

teenaged son and a brain-damaged mother

demands whole

in

customer to

tell

a

who

Caught between them, her

service.

you her

You can encourage Dana

feelings.

And you

can give

on caring for herself. But mainly you'll be teach-

ing her that, to quote Tennessee Williams,

"We

endure

by enduring."

A man

once asked Abe Lincoln what should be en-

graved on an honorary plaque for his

office.

The man

words of wisdom that would

wanted Lincoln

to furnish

be helpful in

circumstances. Lincoln thought about

all

for a while, then said, "This too shall pass."

72

it

11

Self- Care

April 27

Dear Laura, This morning

a colleague called to tell

ing our profession. At

planned to open

he

is

leav-

Carl laughed and said he

first,

a bait shop.

worn down. During

me

But then he said he was

sessions his

mind wandered

to his

morning's conversation with the wife, what to have for lunch, and places to go fishing.

He

caught himself look-

ing at his watch. Even though Carl has a Ph.D. in clinical

psychology, he planned to

and help people clean their Carl

isn't

the

first

lawns, shovel snow,

gutters.

bow

out of

we can be

thera-

person I've known to

our business. Most of us pists,

mow

feel grateful

but every year some of us leave for something

intense.

And

there are

some

therapists

73

who

less

should leave

Mary Pipher

and

don't.

due to

They

are

burned

out, but stay in the business

them and

inertia. I feel sorry for

me

Talking to Carl reminded

some

things about protecting yourself that

me when I was self

is

for their clients.

wanted

I

to tell

you

no one

told

Taking care of your-

a graduate student.

what you preach.

partly a matter of practicing

hard to coach someone on quitting smoking

It's

you reek

if

of tobacco. You can't be a good parent or a good therapist if your

message

is,

Take care of your

"phone all

in."

Once

"Do what I

brain.

I tried

to

Therapy

not what

is

do therapy

I

not work after I'd

do."

we can

been up

night at a concert in Kansas City. All day long,

fled

yawns and fought back nap

sugar.

My clients

Of course,

children or noisy neighbors. But

good

a chain

and

money

or

everyone has nights of sick

rock concerts on weeknights.

"Never operate

I sti-

attacks with caffeine

that day didn't receive their

their time's worth.

a

say,

we can

My

avoid attending

husband, Jim,

says,

saw or do psychotherapy without

nights' sleep."

For every hour Charles Dickens wrote, he walked an hour. That's not practical for therapists, but to

move whenever we

chops

wood

after

can.

I

we do need

have one colleague

work and another who

who

rides her horse

daily.

Many

We own

of us are what Jung called "wounded healers."

have mental

illness in

our families or trauma in our

backgrounds. Certainly

being self-actualized, but have enough to

give. I

we can

if

could

74

help others without

we're too needy, fill

a

book with

we

don't

advice, but

letters to a

my

summed up

thoughts can be

life.

Do

Have

words

—have

a

relationships and interests besides your work.

things that

teries.

in three

young therapist

make you laugh and recharge your

Snuggle with

a baby, take a

cooking

class,

bat-

or join a

theater group.

Because we spend our days talking and thinking,

good

it's

Yoga

to have off-hours filled with tactile pleasures.

and meditation reconnect us with our bodies and relax tense muscles.

need to see

Therapy

a finished

oil painting,

so

is

product

damn ambiguous

now and

then

—

we

that

a quilt,

an

or a refinished oak desk. Jim often leaves

the office and roars across

jumps on the stage with

town

to the

his guitar

Zoo Bar where he

and sings to

a

crowd

that included the very people he has seen in his office that day.

where

He

lovingly refers to the

clients

Zoo Bar

as the place

and therapists collide to boogie to the

blues.

Being

a psychotherapist

is

no Caribbean

cruise with

bonbons and bourbon. Daily we deal with clients, hassles

ries

with managed-care providers, and wor-

about abused and neglected children. For

hardest

we

suffer

me

work is being present when couples decide

vorce. Absorbing If

suicidal

don't find

all

the

to di-

of their pain absolutely wastes me.

good ways

to cope with stress

from bad ways. So identify

a half

we

will

dozen things you

can do to soothe yourself.

my years me advice

During ners gave

they listened.

in private practice,

my

and sympathy.

needed to

Whenever

I

If I

office parttalk,

was too intense or anxious,

75

Mary Pipher

they would figure out a

weekly

staff

still

enjoy

it?

When Jim limit the

and

I

money

office

We

We

did.

many kids

other people.

had

selling

definitely not

to

We saw ourselves

a

We

closed

swim meet or

live

on

up the

violin recital.

more than money and we

our time.

recommending you do what we

We've been teased about our clunky old

see-through towels, and bargain-basement

people don't

Do

but resources that needed care-

consistently valued time

am

work?

weren't big shoppers and could

than

when our

this

in order to keep our therapy energy

were careful about I

We had

opened our practice we chose

number of hours we worked.

sustainable.

laughing.

How could we do it better?

management

less

me

—Why are we doing

as exhaustible resources,

ful

to get

meetings and yearly retreats where we ad-

dressed big questions

we

way

like to drive cars

furniture,

outfits.

Most

with 150,000 miles on

them. (Our luxuries have always been experiences, not products.

am

We like restaurants,

concerts, and vacations.)

saying be intentional about what you do. Don't

your schedule

Hold found pists,

my

just

happen

to a reasonable

hours of therapy

a

let

to you.

number of

limit to be six but

tougher than

I

I

clients per day. I

have known some thera-

who claimed they day. Make sure you

I,

could do eight don't have too

many DCs (difficult customers) on your caseload. Remember you always can say no. Don't let flattery seduce you into taking on a case when you are already full. Referral sources will press you to work more. They will 76

letters to a

cajole, "I don't trust

anyone but you to handle

portant case." If your caseload is

young therapist

is full,

this

im-

the right response

"No, No, No." Follow the code of

and your

sanity.

Don't see anyone even remotely con-

nected with your relatives

IQ

tests

keep both your license

ethics, to

outside therapy. Don't give your

life

or administer a personality inventory

to your cousin. Don't diagnose and label the neighbors.

You up

aren't an expert with people

a perfectly

you

love.

You can screw

good friendship by being therapeutic.

Don't be persuaded into quests from clients. Don't

fulfilling

meet

inappropriate re-

clients for lunch,

buy

Amway products from

them, or hire them to baby-sit or

remodel your house.

What makes

powerful

is

that there are

no

the relationship so

strings attached.

So don't

attach any.

Laura, this advice can be hard to follow. thing harder

is

not to follow

our work. Mistakes can cost ourselves as

our

we can become

clients. Please

tect, replenish,

want you

it.

The

lives. If

only

stakes are high in

we

don't care for

as depressed, anxious, or

think carefully about

and enjoy yourself

selling bait

The

how

angry

to pro-

as a therapist. I don't

and shoveling snow ten years from

now.

77

12

Medication

May

15

Dear Laura, have been fighting the blues

I

know what

causes

all

Sometimes

this.

it

week.

It's

hard to

feels like

sorrow

over work struggles or a friend's sad news. Other times

seems

as if I suffer

seeps into

my good life

Did you know

No or

from

may be

kind of biological sludge that

and covers

that spring

one knows why.

it

a

It

it

is

it

with mud.

the season of suicides?

may be something

that if people are

still

biochemical,

unhappy with

all this

loveliness around, their depression feels inescapable. It's

not surprising that

whether your

last

week we disagreed about

Marlene needed antidepressants.

client

Some

of our differences were theoretical and some

more

generational.

there were

I

went

felt

to school in an era before

good psychiatric medications and

79

I

was

Mary Pipher

trained to see solutions in terms of the therapeutic relationships, not prescriptions.

determinist than case

I

dumped

ate? I

laughed

destiny but

at

more of a

are

biological

am. Mostly we discussed Marlene's

philosophically:

boyfriend

You

she

Is

When

her?

just is

sad

because

medication appropri-

your concluding remark, "Biology

it isn't

chopped

If five therapists

saw Marlene we would have

has always had competing notions about act the

way they

Our

ish.

a

do.

Many

six dif-

Our

field

why humans

earlier theories are stale

thousand others, some very

theories range

isn't

liver either."

ferent theories about the cause of her sadness.

now, but

her

old,

from biochemical,

environmental to spiritual and

existential.

still

flour-

genetic,

We

and

believe

people can have trouble because they have certain kinds of brains or inborn temperaments, or because

they are victims of childhood abuse, or members of an

oppressed minority, or because of their birth order. suggest misery terns,

and

is

related to maladaptive behavior pat-

poor communication

a lack

There

of meaning in is

cally based,

no doubt

skills,

irrational thinking,

life.

that

some depression

is

biologi-

entrenched and relatively unrelated to the

environment. I've seen clients Richard Corey.

man who

We

He was

who reminded me

of

the healthy, loved, and successful

killed himself in Edwin Arlington Robinson's

well-known poem. One of

my

clients

was so prone to

despair that even

good luck caused her dismay. She once

opened

cookie that read,

a fortune

80

"Money will

fall

from

young therapist

letters to a

"My

the sky for you." She shouted,

when

it

hits

Much

me on

of what

god,

we

depression

call

think of Erin

I

caring husband, a lousy job, and very

was fan or rewarding. at

my hotel

in

think of

I

Toronto.

in his native country, but

He

once presented

at

the Azores.

paper

He

is

be killed

simply sadness

who had little

told

Amin who had been

me

a dull,

un-

in her life that

ran the

gift

a psychiatrist

was unable to secure

to practice in Canada. a

will

the head."

brought on by events.

shop

I

his license

proudly that he had

an international conference in

Now he spends

his days selling breath

mints

and bottled water.

To quote old-time country need to be able to

tell

and

One

'that's nuts.'"

singer

Sam Morrow, "We

the difference between

'that's life'

of our most important jobs

is

to

help clients distinguish between depression and sorrow.

The

extremes are easy to

call.

Richard Corey might have

been helped by antidepressants. Erin could benefit from a

new

needs

job,

some women

a cultural

friends,

and

case

is

most

such

both

as

likely

a particle

Amin

Marlene's

really struggle to reach consensus.

And

her

not either/or but rather both/and.

Just as light can best be understood as

hobby.

broker to help him through the physi-

cian's credential system. It is cases

where we can

a

and

a

if it is

considered

wave, mental health problems of-

ten are both biochemical and environmental. Further-

more, the factors interact with each other. Research demonstrates that reactions to circumstances engender

permanent changes

in the brain.

81

Depressed people have

Mary Pipher

different brains than nondepressed ones, but they also

often have different parties

and

lives.

They jog less and

attend fewer

picnics.

Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are

managed cer,

if

the client

more

easily

homeless, fighting breast can-

isn't

drinking heavily, or in an abusive relationship.

Lifestyle factors and existential choices affect mental

health just as they affect physical health. Virtually every disorder has

many

What

causes.

factors should

we em-

phasize?

Our

why

clients ask us

We

causing this?"

ory possible, that

questions.

"Why me?

need to choose the most benign theis,

the theory that requires the fewest

radical changes before they feel better.

blame

their parents, their recovered

chromosomes.

What's

We want to

We don't want to

memories, or their

frame their situations with

a

theory that leads them toward good decisions.

What we how she sees

Marlene

tell

herself,

labeled depressed

is

and a

is

how

mixed

what she does,

others will see her. Being

blessing. It can help

Mar-

may make her feel that her beyond her control. And the label may

lene obtain support, but

happiness

will influence

it

cause others to write her off as unreliable and hopeless.

So

as

of this morning, here's what

Let's

assume that Marlene

tion of sadness,

is

I

think

we should

do.

dealing with a combina-

stemming from her breakup with her

boyfriend, and depression.

We

will give

her

fight the depression without medications.

a

month

to

Meanwhile

you can obtain more information about her family

82

young therapist

letters to a

history, her relationships, her sleep,

drug

use.

work.

You can

Make

initiate

and alcohol and

Be-Good-to-Marlene home-

sure that every day she

is

seeing people

who

care about her. Encourage her to watch fun movies, luxuriate in bubble baths,

mend down

exercise, the

and

more

listen to soft music.

the better.

things she feels proud

vacations,

little

of.

Ask her

Recomto write

Teach her to take mini-

breaks that allow her time to savor

mo-

ments. Talk through issues that are troubling her. Let's see

how much

she recovers. In a

significantly better,

we

In the meantime, bate these issues

month

if

Marlene

isn't

will consider medications.

come by my house and we

some more.

I

could use

a

will de-

good walk,

a

treatment that works for both depression and sorrow,

and makes supervision sessions

83

a great pleasure.

13

Dating

May 21 Dear Laura,

Did you ever hear the old country song with the stinger, "I like

am

so miserable without

you that

it's

almost

having you here"?

Last night a friend and

about her

new

sophisticated.

boyfriend.

drank limeades and talked

I

Cora

is

intelligent, stable,

and

But when she discusses dating, she looks

like a frightened child.

Cora married years ago when she was

in medical

school. After three painful years, she was divorced.

About her marriage she

said sadly, "I

wasn't good at asking for what things personally.

The

older

I

most of what other people do

85

I

was young and

wanted.

get the isn't

I

took too

more

many

I realize

about me."

I

that

Mary Pipher

After her divorce she avoided close relationships with

men. Only since the tragedy of September

has her

1 1

need for support outweighed her

fears of

Three months ago Cora met Arnie

at a singles

being hurt. dance

at

her church. He's a general contractor, personable and hardworking. Cora relationship.

worthy of her

high

—

dicted,

I

trying to get a handle

She doesn't want to

want an

on her new

settle for a

man

"I don't think

interesting,

my criteria

are

all

employed, moral, nonad-

who

qualify."

Cora and Arnie generally have fun on and he

liberal

dates. She's a

conservative, but they laugh about

is

However, she

their political differences.

frets that

Arnie doesn't always do what he says he will do.

when

very self-disclosing and,

"Ninety-nine percent of

all

He

she talks about her

he changes the subject.

feelings,

know

that

and nonattached heterosexual. But I'm not find-

ing droves of men

isn't

not

but she doesn't want to be too picky

love,

She sighed,

either.

is

women

I

warned

her,

men

don't

say that

squat about dealing with women's emotions."

She laughed and admitted,

"I've never

met anyone

in

that one percent."

As she sister. I

left

my

don't want

house, Cora confided, "I envy

my

to be a housewife in Humansville,

Missouri, but she doesn't have to put on expensive, un-

comfortable clothes and try to be hip."

With field.

dating,

Cora

is

entering an emotional mine-

Falling in love, having sex, and

making commit-

ments, in whatever order you take them, these things

86

letters to a

have always been tory, in all

risky.

That

is

But dating

ritualized.

twenty-first century unhinges us

Cora's story reminded

a

from

why throughout

his-

times and places, courtship behaviors have

been heavily

ries

young therapist

my work as

of

a therapist.

fun-loving charmer,

love her. She was a

me

Abby

CEO

in

America

in the

all.

a

hundred other

sto-

Even though she was

couldn't find anyone to

men were intimidated by picked women who treated

and

her power. Wally always

Dean and Magenta dated for fourteen years, but could never commit to each other at the same time. After her father's death Shawna moved in him

badly.

with an abusive alcoholic. Marcia and Mitch had

a car-

ing relationship, except Mitch always had sexual partners on the side, which he called "play relationships." In

my era,

dating was no walk in the park.

remem-

I

ber wrestling matches in backseats and arguments over

below-the-neck touch.

I recall

the anxiety girls felt and

the anger guys expressed during sexual negotiations.

But

it's

worse today. There

sex now, but there

is

and, of course, there

The

also

is

is

more information about

more pressure

to be sexual

AIDS.

rules for dating can be contradictory

— be

real

but be cool, be sexy but not sex-obsessed, be charming but don't try too hard, and don't talk about expectations yet expect things to

hot cognitions

go smoothly. Everyone has

—worries about being used or not being

desired, fears of rejection or entrapment,

abandonment or of being

87

controlled. It

and is

a

fears of

rigged

Mary Pipher

game but

it's

in order to

the only

game

in town.

People must play

have families of their own.

And

if

the

ends badly, people struggle to carry on with

The

intensity of feeling about breakups

ordinary

human

instincts for continuity

game

civility.

overwhelms

and kindness.

Gentle people end up hating each other. Television and movies exacerbate our problems.

We

see hundreds of images of gorgeous people flirting cleverly,

then moving into graceful, gymnastic

without

sex,

sweating, bad breath, or discussions about birth control. I

remember

a

couple

who came

in with sexual problems.

Helen was heavy and Bob watched

lots

of television.

He

pressured Helen to lose weight. She told him, "Give up.

My family is full of fatties. No matter how much weight I lose, I'll

bold, but

never be Michelle Pfeiffer."

Helen was hurt by

his

Her words were

judgment and she feared

being naked in front of him. I

encouraged

this

couple to take walks in the

evenings after dinner. This would have them physically active together in a setting

groaned over that a

gym

idea,

away from the TV. Bob

but he was willing to sign up for

so that they could

work out

together.

Helen

agreed, mostly just to spend time with her husband away

from the outs.

grew

television. Later, she

Helen never

lost

through relationship portant to Bob.

much

issues,

He wanted

to relish the

work-

we

talked

weight, but as

her weight became her

fit,

it,

"Hell, she puts

up with me."

88

im-

which she was indeed

becoming. And he appreciated her other

As he put

less

fine qualities.

letters to a

An

already

murky and

pedoed by gender

men all

perilous situation can be tor-

differences.

don't express feelings

They

learn that

over them.

Men

— except for anger and

Women

are taught to

play hard to get, without being

women

yearn for

and whispers,

open about ings.

a

"I love

women

you," while

will

lust.

walk

but also to

flirt,

a tease.

romantic hero

Meanwhile,

who washes dishes men fear being too

their feelings unless they are sexual feel-

Women tremble

worry

are taught that real

they are too nice,

if

young therapist

they'll

asking for

commitment and men

be considered wimps

if

they take out the

trash or admit they are in love.

There

is

one interesting exception.

to express feelings in their art.

Off

Men are allowed

Take music, for example.

stage, cool musicians are laid-back, low-key,

But oddly, on

taciturn.

stage, the "coolest

even

men" break

our hearts with every song. Chet Baker's music was filled

with pain and yearning, while his off stage

manners were those of a cool

hipster.

George Jones, Joe

Cocker, Van Morrison, B. B. King, and the Everly Brothers

all

sing as

if

relationships

were matters of life

and death. Their voices tremble, groan, crack, and roar with emotion. All the emotions that cannot be ex-

pressed by stage,

it's

tant to be

men

in real life are expressed in songs.

okay to have

feelings.

Off

stage,

it's

macho.

Teenagers receive more lessons on driving than on dating and making relationships work.

asked

a

On

impor-

college student

how 89

a car

Once

I

she decided to get in-

Mary Pipher

volved sexually. She answered, "I don't know.

drunk and do

get

I just

A fraternity boy on a campus I visited

it."

was arrested for the date rape of a coed while he was on the phone ordering her "morning after" flowers.

The

night before, he had what he thought was consensual sex.

But

was horrified that he didn't under-

his date

stand that "'No' means 'no.'" She had reported a rape to

campus police when she returned

Many that

dorm.

people marry to escape the roller-coaster ride

dating,

is

to her

which

and burning witches

is

right

up there with foot-binding

at the stake for painful,

cultural customs. Although, to

misguided

mix metaphors, many

people jump from the roller coaster into the Laura, warn your clients that

fire. is

not

marriage material. To evaluate another person,

it's

necessary to see them in

your

clients to

to be

meet

many

that glitters

all

settings.

their dates' family

Encourage

and friends and

wary of anyone who has no family and

friends.

women to listen to how men talk about other women and watch how they treat their mothers. Pay attention to how a date describes past relationships. Tell

Blamers are not good relationship

risks.

jealous, secretive, or controlling people.

push boundaries and don't respect be bullies as time unfurls. Too also

bodes

ill.

Dates

who

limits are likely to

much

intensity too early

Stable people go slowly.

I'm not much ing in love than clients

Neither are

of a romantic. I

I

have

do for being good

less trust for

friends.

I

be-

suggest

pay attention to old-fashioned virtues such

90

as

letters to a

respect, loyalty, stability,

scene

is

young therapist

and honesty. The dating

not for the faint of heart. Tell your clients

that, unlike in the

movies,

when they

eyes open.

91

kiss,

keep their

Part

III:

Summer

1

14

Marriage

June

2

Dear Laura, I just

returned from

my morning

and 90 percent humidity. June month.

I feel

for

all

me

Jim's band's busiest

who

have outdoor wed-

The ceremonies make me

One

wants to shout, "Have you thought

this

through?" Another part bursts into tears nerability

— 90 degrees cry.

dings this weekend.

part of

the couples

is

run

at all that vul-

and hope.

Mark Twain wrote triumph of

that marriage

is

an example of the

over experience. Certainly on the day

faith

people marry, they feel deeply in love. But, over the years almost

all

marriages have serious

crises,

and half

end in divorce. To quote another great writer, Jorge Luis Borges, "Love

is

a religion

organized around a

god."

95

fallible

Mary Pipher

some

In the thirty years I've seen couples in therapy, things change,

some remain

the same. In the

the 1970s, couples talked about sex.

ment work

I

remember my

pressed anxiety or

tors. I

did marital enrich-

I

lively in bed. I blush

sessions with people

boredom about

them on

lectured

lives. I

in

that involved coaching staid Nebraskans to

be creative, communicative, and

when

Midwest

who

ex-

the quality of their sex

and vibra-

foreplay, massage,

encouraged couples to make love in new places

and in different positions. Oh, the

seventies.

to explain the sexual revolution to

.

.

it is

hard

anyone from your

generation.

In the 1980s couples argued about

money and

in the

1990s they fought over time. In our current decade, the challenges couples face involve the struggles from three of the past decades. Everyone

money that there

is

As one

it,

client put

no time "sleep

is

all

so busy earning

for sex or even conversation. is

the

new

sex."

But the age-

How do you resolve conflict, make good decisions, and get along with the in-laws? How do you reconcile "we" with "I"? How do you have someone old problems remain:

around when you want them around and not around

when you

don't?

Marriage is

is

How do you make passion last?

both natural and unnatural. Mating for

cross-species behavior. But until recendy,

shorter.

Modern marriage

and habits, to

live

life

was much

requires two people, often with

different interests, personal styles, ing,

life

ways of communicat-

together for sixty years. People

change enormously over those decades. As therapist Carl

96

letters to a

Whitaker put

"I

it,

have been married seven times

same woman." Of course,

the

young therapist

if

—

all

to

marriage partners don't

change, that creates a different set of problems.

The worst marriages live

are the "can't live with

and

can't

without" kind, in which relationships are riddled

with addictions,

worst place

is

A

and violence.

lies,

close second for

the utterly disconnected couple,

who

shares space but nothing else. Both fire and ice suffice for destruction of the

human

soul.

Passionate but mercurial marriages thrive on fighting

and making up. Taciturn, withdrawn couples eschew any discussion of conflicts.

Over

time,

more and more

things

are left unsaid, until the sheer weight of unresolved

is-

sues breaks the back of the marriage. Often these couples divorce without ever having an argument.

In

some marriages, one person

calls all

Most marriages have one person who while the other mate

is

the shots.

the pursued

the pursuer, one eager-to-please

is

who likes being who could best be

partner married to a withholding person pleased.

And we

all

know

couples

nicknamed the "Bickersons." In these couples, and nagging are entangled with

A common intellectual

dynamic

for couples

man

analytical one. Therapist Jan

is

the

Zegers

and the witch syndrome." In time, destabilizes.

is

that

and controlled while the other

and emotional. Often, the

The

criticism

love.

emotional person

one mate is

impulsive

more detached and calls this

this

the "stone

kind of marriage

feels

she must shout

louder and louder to get a reaction from a mate

97

is

who

Mary Pipher

grows more wooden and unresponsive. Over the

become

these couples

caricatures, locked in roles

years,

no one

would choose. Contrasting personalities can benefit

Many

marriage.

a

work because one person

relationships

supplies

the stability and the other the energy. As one happily

married client put

it,

Two

"I'm the gas. He's the brakes."

over-controlled people married to each other are likely to have clean houses, balanced checkbooks,

organized schedules. But they septic

to

and bland.

be a

also

little

anti-

emotional people are likely

florid

burn each other up before year one

Too much a

Two

may

and well-

is

finished.

contrast leaves people lonely.

I

remember

couple in which the wife was intuitive, empathic, and

complicated. She was married to a computer program-

mer who sloughed through emotional and She was

issues.

a loyal wife

She did

for the kids.

all

marriage viable. But she

who

stayed in the marriage

the emotional felt

interpersonal

work

pummeled by

boorishness. She once said bitterly,

"He

to

make

the

the husband's

is

aggressively

He would be happy with anyone who liked to have and knew how to grill bratwurst." Of course, the

dull.

sex

husband a

good

felt

unappreciated for being

provider.

their children.

He

also

had

a solid citizen

and

stayed in the marriage for

Only duty connected

this couple.

And

duty alone makes for bitterness.

There

are truly

happy marriages, but depending on

your definitions, these can be rare or common. The closer

I

am

to couples, the

more

98

I

am

aware of the

fault

letters to a

On

lines in their relationships.

mean

doesn't

A

perfect.

young therapist

the other hand, happy

surprising

number of people

value their mates in spite of chronic unresolved issues.

Most marriages combine

aspects of

all

the above re-

lationships. I have always resisted classification schemes.

Nobody

is

simple as any category. Arnie and Carina

as

are a case in point. Arnie

and

tight,

faded jeans.

came

in

He made

wearing cowboy boots

his living as

an auction-

eer at a stockyard. His wife, Carina, was a poufy-haired

who said, "Now I work for me because Carina was grow-

blond, a former barmaid, Arnie."

They came

to see

ing weary of her role as a big-hearted, good-time

girl.

What

that

being

Waylon Jennings heroine meant was

a

she cleaned, cooked, and did laundry and yard

work

while Arnie hung out at the local honky-tonk.

During our this couple. it

had trouble connecting to

Arnie raged about being in therapy and took

He

out on me.

soften things a

henceforth." forth."

first session, I

called

bit, I

He

When

I

me

invited

Dr. Pipher, and thinking to

him

smirked and called me, "Mary Henceraised

said mildly, "Lady,

my

eyebrows, he shrugged and

you asked

for

it."

When

to define his ideal marriage, he said,

woman would

me Mary,

to "Please call

be

a

I

asked him

"The

nymphomaniac who ran

perfect a

liquor

store."

What

a

defensive smart aleck!

Carina struck to stand

up

me

On

as smiling, sugary,

for herself.

Her

first

and

totally

words were,

sent us because of my acid stomach."

99

the other hand,

unable

"My doctor

Mary Pipher

Of course, good Arnie came from

therapy transcends

where

a family

impressions.

his father slapped his

mother around and charged her what

made

first

little

money

she

selling eggs for a ride into

town on Saturdays.

men who

believed in keeping

Arnie's peer culture

women

was

barefoot and pregnant. Given his background,

He had never physically hurt wanted her to have fun. He

Arnie had come a long way.

Carina and he genuinely

seemed almost puzzled staying

home

that she wasn't satisfied with

in a nice house.

Carina also came from a

home

with a dominating

ther and a beaten-down mother. She had

women, but she had managed

assertive

therapy and with complaints.

my

They both

he's

marriage.

would never cheat on

lucky with money."

I get." I

He

"The harder

said,

smirked, "Carina

is

good

my

in bed."

week she wanted him to

wasn't going to be

way

a few.

home

call

don't

paused, "Well

Dur-

"That way," she

said,

is

maybe she could drop

100

nights.

if he

for dinner.

want." Arnie said, "Carina

Carina

by mid-afternoon

microwave myself something and spend I

I

she puts up with a jerk like me."

wanted Arnie home on Saturday and Sunday

"I'll

work,

Then he

best friend.

As to goals for therapy, they had only

ing the

I

asked Arnie what he liked about the

choked up and added, "She's

know how

to get Arnie to

good things about

identified

Arnie winked at me, then the luckier

no models of

help she began to verbalize her

their marriage. Carina said, "Arnie

me. And

fa-

my

time the

A-Okay." Then he

a couple of pounds." I

young therapist

letters to a

groaned and Carina threw laughed and

Kleenex box

a

This couple's communication therapists

Forget

said, "All right, All right.

style

at

him.

He

I said that."

was not what

would recommend. But they had modest

ex-

pectations about marriage and after five sessions, they pretty satisfied with each other.

left

Good communication doesn't mean saying everything. Lots of couples who communicate spend their time nagging, criticizing, and venting, none of which necessarily helps.

Good manners

Laughing together eases tension

soften hard hearts. effectively.

As Arnie

and Carina's marriage shows, there are plenty of ways to

make

things work.

Happy

spouses tend to see their partners as smarter,

better looking, and sexier than they really are. Research

shows that positive

good marriages.

more

likely to

illusions

about one's spouse foster

A man whose wife

behave heroically.

sees

him

as a

hero

is

apply this research to

I

therapy by reinforcing positive statements about spouses

and challenging negative ones. pletely that

still

("I

agree with you

waters run deep." Or,

com-

"What makes you

think your husband doesn't love you?") I

At

knew

a

couple happily married for over

their anniversary celebration, they their

many

"I regret the

time

flect

on

years of married

we wasted

other."

The husband

success

is I

said,

were asked to

life.

The

re-

wife said,

trying to improve each

"The

secret of

wake up every morning, look

and say to myself 'You're no prize

101

fifty years.

either.'"

my

marital

in the mirror

Mary Pipher

Hope

doesn't always die.

wisdom and emotion out.

I

think of

that

my Aunt

There

is

Agnes, small and

it,

of dying at home." That

wedding

my

frail,

is

she "wants to give is

a

with se-

hard on her

him

the gift

kind of love young people

finery cannot even imagine.

102

it

large, wheelchair-

in his nineties. It

health, but as she puts

in their

often a depth of

comes from years of sticking

vere osteoporosis. She cares for

bound uncle who

is

15

Helping Ophelia's Family

June

23

Dear Laura, After you scheduled your

you looked crazed all

those people?"

as I

first

family-therapy case,

you asked me, "What do

promised

I

I

do with

would write down some

of my thoughts about family work.

Caution: I

faced

Long

Letter Ahead!

my first family when I was an intern in Galve-

ston, Texas.

A team of students

me work from

behind

a

and supervisors watched

one-way mirror. Because

claimed to speak Spanish on

my internship

was assigned to work with

a

five

unruly

kids. Alas,

my

had

application, I

Mexican mother and her

Spanish was woefully inade-

quate for this overwhelmed, fast-talking

was catching maybe half of her out of control.

I

The youngest 103

mom. While

story, the kids

literally

I

rocketed

climbed the walls,

Mary Pipher

shredding our curtains

in the process.

team alternated between phoning I

The

supervision

which

in instructions,

was unable to execute, and laughing their behinds off at

my

ineptitude.

My second was

case, mercifully

couple with a rebellious teenager. At

a middle-class

time

the

unobserved by the team,

knew almost nothing

I

teenagers. But that didn't stop

about

practical

me from

offering

smug

and mostly useless advice. In retrospect that couple was amazingly patient with me. can only recall one simple case.

I

came

in

with their five-year-old daughter

what used tions,

I

A young who

couple

suffered

to be called night terrors. After a few ques-

discovered that she sat on her dad's lap every

night as he watched the ten o'clock news. She loved

snuggling with her dad, but setting her.

I

parents, a

My

stories instead.

That

normal

first

kid,

professional training

wife

who

No

The

girl's

and

a solvable

problem.

work overwhelmed me.

seemed

My

useless in the presence of

lecture prepared

me

to handle a bitter

reeking of alcohol. Trying to talk about

communication with that drunk guy and

may have been my low-water mark work.

— good

refused to talk in our session and her husband

who showed up

We

bad dreams

case was a walk in the park

years of family

real families.

suspected the news was up-

advised the father to turn off the television

and read bedtime disappeared.

I

his sullen wife

as a therapist.

must dance between the raindrops

Our

job

is

to

do family

to validate every point of view and, at

104

— young therapist

letters to a

the same time, stay out of trouble with other family

members. There tal

an old joke about

is

doing mari-

a rabbi

therapy. First he listens as the wife pours out her

heart. "Yes,"

he

band explains

"You are

you

says, "Yes,

his side

right."

can't agree with

The

are right."

of the story.

u

us.

We

the hus-

Yes," the rabbi says,

couple shouts

both of

Then

"You

at the rabbi.

have totally different

points of view." "Yes, yes," agrees the rabbi. "You are

both right."

The most important work the family environment.

early

You need

on

is

understanding

to assess family re-

sources, hot-button issues, and potential crisis points.

Note

strengths, virtues, talents, and signs of resiliency.

who in the family wants to teenager, "When you and your parents

Identify

what in

will

your

you want them

life?"

change. Ask

are again close,

to understand about this time

Ask members how they would know the

family was solving

its

problems. Ask, "If you had

wand, what change would each of you make ily?"

It's

a

a

magic

in this

fam-

amazing how simple most people's needs are

parents want an adolescent to eat dinner with them, or a

son wants his dad to play his wife to give

him

man wants when he comes home from

ball

a kiss

with him, or

a

work.

Educate families about developmental

issues.

Often

the most therapeutic thing you can say to a parent

"This

is

normal

for a kid this age."

Help

is,

families hold

reasonable expectations, not only about developmental levels,

but also about

how

well families actuallv do. Sav,

105

Mary Pipher

"All families have

arguments over

who

does the dishes."

Or, "Kids beg for treats on vacations. That's hard-wired."

Be

flexible,

words such tend."

Laura.

as

When you make

suggestions, use

"experiment," "temporary," and "pre-

That keeps people from being too threatened by

changes. If you're in over your head, find a cotherapist. Especially with teenagers,

if

therapy

vite in grandparents. Adolescents

is

not working, in-

may be

furious at their

parents, but often they love and respect

Papa. Eventually the

number of people

Nonna and in the room

helps the teenager feel cared for and contained.

In a healthy family, people take turns being the needy one, the strong one, or the joker. In troubled families, these roles are set in stone. feel

When

this

happens, people

trapped in a script they didn't consciously choose

and that doesn't allow them

a full

range for character de-

velopment. Help the identified patient (IP) off the hot seat.

Being the sick one shouldn't be anyone's full-time

permanent

On

job.

members of the

the other hand, give the perfect

family permission to screw up

now and

then.

Encourage new groupings

in the family. If

dad never

does anything alone with his delinquent son, have them

work together on

a project. If the parents

seldom go out

because they are afraid to leave Junior at home, ask them to send

him

to his grandparents for a week.

simply rearranging people frees up clients to

new

Sometimes

energy. Invite

change chairs and then ask them to speak to

one another

as if

they were other family members. This

106

young therapist

letters to a

simple technique builds empathy.

works especially

It

well with adolescents and their parents

who

often think

of each other as coming from alien solar systems.

Problems are never so

know

terrible that they can't be

with

of hu-

joked about.

I

mor. Once

teenager showed up wearing bright orange

a

a therapist

a great sense

and purple slacks and he asked, "Do you know the nition of psychotic?"

The

pointed to the slacks.

"Now that's what I

I

program who asked me

"How do you

When my could ask I

family looked baffled and he call

chuckled with the parents of a child

for the gifted

spell

IQ?"

I

joke about

son was twelve,

me

defi-

I

in

I

all

was testing earnestness,

my own

pompously

anything he needed to

psycho."

told

failures.

him he

know about sex,

would always answer him honestly and

directly.

immediate question was, "Did you and Dad have sex night?"

I yelled,

Oust

secrets.

the ones that

"You

can't ask

There

me

that

His last

that."

are three kinds of family secrets:

members hide from

the world, the ones

they hide from each other, and the ones they hide even

from themselves. Families cannot be more honest with us than they are with themselves. If they are denying dad's sexual abuse or

not

know about Secrets are

mom's drinking problems, we may

these things for a surprisingly long time.

all

about shame. As poet Adrienne Rich

wrote, "That which

is

unspoken becomes unspeakable."

Secrets are also about power.

out-groups. Often, family protection.

"We

didn't

They define

members

want dad

107

in-groups and

justify secrets as

to be upset."

However,

Mary Pipher

secrets isolate

and allow people to do destructive things.

Secrets erode trust.

Support parental authority. Earlier in the tury, lots

our culture was

last

cen-

a pretty authoritarian place

with

of rules and expectations. Healthy families balanced

out the rigidity of the culture with their gentleness, love of fun, and relative permissiveness. But over the

few

last

decades, adult authority has eroded. This has created

problems for children and for their parents.

terrible

signs of this daily. Just yesterday

who behaved

toddler

mother lite."

was

I

at a picnic

I

see

with a

rudely to a family friend. His

said to him, "Apologize to Tina.

That wasn't po-

But before the toddler could speak, Tina said

loudly, "That's

all

right,"

and gave him

a

hug.

The boy

learned that his rudeness didn't matter.

Teach conflict-resolution niques, and exit strategies.

anyone

in a family

is

The most

"I apologize."

and sorrow can be eliminated say they are sorry.

skills,

Keep

in

if

useful phrase for

A great deal of anger

family

mind

face-saving tech-

that

members

learn to

men and women

tend to have different meanings for the word, "sorry."

Women

find

saying, "I pain."

it

am

Men

easier to apologize because they see

sorry

have

a

I

members

as

hurt your feelings or caused you

tougher time because they often see

apologizing as saying, "I

Make

it

am

eating shit."

sure positive change

is

recognized. Family

often behave heroically and no one notices.

Assign parents to actively observe their children being

good and

to

watch for the secret good deeds that their

108

letters to a

mates do for them.

once saw

I

a

young therapist

who had

couple

trouble

raising their foster children because they focused

and cleaning the bedrooms. They

tasks such as studies

were a caring couple but they saw After one session,

them back

to congratulate the

dad on

my surprise, he choked up my compliment.

in

in terms of duty.

and the profound are

as

from the waiting room

and had

it

moment of life salt

the banal

and pepper.

to the family. Say to the

"The look you gave your son shows me how deeply

you care

that he

is

rhythm

the

sparkling

happy." In most sessions, as in

moment.

unfortunately,

It's

astonishing

it's

how

quickly things

of working with an angry daughter

all

A

abruptly quieted down. After a few said,

The

I

then

silence

girl

looked shocked and

said,

was thinking, too." The therapist com-

you two alone

Create a mellow

who

said, "I'll

to talk about this further."

room tone

ment can happen. Couples they agree on

life,

moments of

plimented the mother's great understanding and just leave

talked

"I'm thinking of the phrase, 'paint one-

self into a corner.'"

"That's just what

colleague

who

the messes she had created in her

her mother

of

blah, blah, blah,

can go seriously wrong or incredibly right.

me

much

blah, blah, blah, then insight or

is

moment. Or

disastrous

about

to

tears in his eyes after

intermingled as

Catch the profound and show

told

Much

his fun-loving spirit.

Celebrate moments. In every

life,

life

heard the dad suggest they stop for

I

ice cream. I called

father,

on

so that a sparkling

mo-

don't stay together because

does the dishes. Try not to get tan-

109

Mary Pipher

somehow

gled up in detail and that connected

them

they happened to

lose track of the

in the first place.

fall

Not

in love.

Ask couples how

always, but usually,

people go dreamy-eyed, soften their voices, and

good

To

story.

find

magic

magic with teens and

tell a

their parents,

That reminds everyone of the primal

ask about births.

bonding experience and

their long history.

Exude calmness. Even when you don't

feel calm,

learn to act calm. Anxiety, anger, and despair are infec-

Model emotional

tious.

cope with intense emotions. Be

Family therapy can be intense,

human

is

need ways to

control. Families a

purveyor of hope.

scary,

and loud. Every

extraordinarily complex and in families this

complexity

is

logarithmic. But hope generally makes

things better.

No matter what people

say, families are

the source of

our greatest joys and greatest sorrows. Zorba the Greek called families, "the

kept

me humble.

have tried

I

most incompetent didn't think

whole catastrophe."

as a parent.

we were

perfect.

my

My own

hardest and

And our

family

felt

my

kids certainly

Once our son drew

a picture

of himself between Jim and me. In this picture he was tiny

and we were

giants.

Under the drawing, he wrote,

psychologist. He's a psychologist.

cent

little

boy" Another time

came home with talk to

me, and

my space. "If I

I

a migraine.

And

after a

My son

I

am just

he handed

pay you would you

me

talk to

110

I

repeatedly tried to

his allowance

me?"

an inno-

long day at work

kept impatiendy signaling that

Finally,

"She's a

I

needed

and asked,

letters to a

young therapist

When my kids were teenagers I often had the experience of seeing parents

who were drug

or philanderers, whose kids were

well-behaved than

my own kids.

addicted, abusive,

more

respectful and

Other times

I

would

re-

alize I

was "helping" couples who were better parents

than

was.

I

I

they said for

would be tempted

to take notes

on what

my own family's benefit.

Laura, because you aren't a parent yourself, there

may

be times you are uncertain about advice. Usually

the best strategy

is

to share that uncertainty. Amazingly,

families usually find that disarming

and end up reassur-

ing you.

Whew,

this

was

a

long

letter.

Families are unique,

multilayered, and not what they seem.

They speak

in

code. Problems are sometimes decades in the making.

You

don't have to

you

will feel

you can and

fix

everything overnight. For a while

outnumbered and outsmarted. Offer what let

the family do their

own

healing work.

Families have survived for thousands of years without therapists.

Ill

16

Intentionality

July 7

Dear Laura, was fan to run into you

It

week. Did you

like the

at

Farmer's Market

last

music from Chile? Did you pur-

chase that braided rug? Did you buy fresh cherries or apricots?

We

have so

many

choices at the market,

all

of

them good. I

saw are

wish we had more time to discuss the family you last

making

ilar case.

apy

week. all

awoke remembering your

the

wrong

choices." Years ago

line, I

had

"They a

sim-

Justin and Annie were court-ordered into ther-

after they

town.

I

were arrested

They had

left their

in a bar

on the

outskirts of

toddler and three-year-old

outside in their pick-up while they partied. Partying

my least favorite verb.

It

is

covers a multitude of stupidities

and glosses over consequences.

113

It's

a

word

that, to

quote

Mary Pipher

my Grandmother

Glessie, "paints a shit pile purple."

Anyway, someone saw the kids sleeping

and called the

in the

back seat

Annie and Justin were charged

police.

with child neglect and the kids were placed in temporary foster care.

The

couple was referred to

me

for alcohol

evaluations and counseling.

Justin slouched in wearing a torn Aerosmith T-shirt,

black jeans, and engineer boots. Annie had spiky

tomato-red

hair, a

nose ring, and freckles. She wore

boots and jeans with a halter- top that would have been sexy to

she hadn't weighed 100 pounds.

Her

me were, "You look like my mom." I was surprised how much I liked this

had n't

if

a

first

words

couple. Justin

He hadchildren. He

shy sweet manner and was eager to please.

had

a

drink since the night they lost the

swore he only drank

as

much

as his friends,

mitted, "That don't matter now.

Annie claimed she

I

but he ad-

want the kids back."

didn't even like the taste of alco-

hol and that night had only sipped on a margarita. She

protested weakly that she'd checked on the children every half an hour that night. She and Justin couldn't

af-

ford a baby-sitter and almost never went out. Just this

one time to celebrate

would be

okay.

Justin's birthday, they

But she choked up,

thought

"I can't sleep

it

without

my babies." Justin

worked

at a place that

manufactured

fertilizer

tanks and Annie cashiered at a convenience shop.

had different

shifts so

they could save

money on

They

daycare.

However, that meant they were always exhausted and

114

letters to a

rarely together.

young therapist

The baby had been born prematurely

and they owed the hospital over $3,000 for their co-pay.

But Justin had purchased an deer

rifle.

He

signer jeans.

and

all-terrain vehicle

a

bought Annie her leather boots and de-

They had

a satellite dish

and surround-

sound TV, but not enough money for the baby's formula. Justin and Annie had been educated by advertisers.

Happiness meant owning the right

TVs,

cell

phones,

DVDs, and

They had been educated caffeine, tobacco, in.

to

— big-screen

stuff

shopping-channel jewelry.

consume brand-name

sugar,

and booze. Glitzy casinos lured them

Credit card companies led them

down

a

primrose

path toward bankruptcy.

Fortunate children have parents

who

help them sort

through the avalanche of choices. But Justin's dad was an alcoholic, in

doned him

and out of

jail,

and

to a series of foster

his

homes.

mother had aban-

He recalled carry-

ing an empty lunch box to school every day and slipping off alone to pretend to eat lunch. Afternoons he worried

that other kids

would hear

his

never knew her father and her

stomach growl. Annie

mom

worked two

jobs.

Neither of them had ever experienced family dinners or vacations. Justin and

were

just kids

Annie loved their

themselves with

little

kids,

sense of

but they

how

the

world worked.

At the end of our

first session, I

asked

if

they wanted

They both nodded solemnly. I gave them a phone number for a Parent Training course and said,

to return.

115

Mary Pipher

"Next time bring your bank statement and budgeting your money. You to get

your

some

to sell

things

blue about budgeting, but he

a little

"Doc, you're calling the shots."

You won't be shocked never joined

work on

squared away."

bills

Justin looked said politely,

may have

we'll

Audubon

to hear that Justin

and Annie

PTA but they did

or the

kids back and their finances under control.

get their

They

cut up

their credit cards, always a step in the right direction. In-

stead of watching video games, Justin played a

little ball

with his older son. Annie started using time-outs to cipline the kids.

They even turned

dis-

off the television dur-

ing meals. I

ran into them recently at a street dance, kids in tow.

Annie had henna paintings on her arms and her hair was the color of cranberries.

They were

drinking sodas and

the kids were giggling at their balloon animals.

This family happened to be low-income, but in

my

experience, the worst cases of runaway consumption ap-

pear in wealthy families stuff.

other,

who

are avalanched

all

their

Unless they throw some of it away and talk to each

nobody

Almost

all

actually

knows anybody.

families

need help sorting out their

tionships to time and money. both.

by

A

good assignment

with their

own

of days a year clients, it

is

Most of

I

see

us cannot have

to ask families to

definitions of wealth.

my own

rela-

Mine

is

come up

the

number

adult children. For your

might be the number of nights they have

116

a

young therapist

letters to a

number of times

family meal or the

a

day the family

laughs and has fun together. Especially in the last decade,

ing people's schedules.

hour or

treat-

help parents carve out a dinner

encourage parents to

a family day. I

activities. I

I

my main work is

set limits

on

teach that time, like money, should be allo-

cated in keeping with values and priorities.

Stephan Rechtschaffen's work comes in handy. In book, Timeshifting, he

"Having

a

tells

good time, wish

Americans are always

of seeing a bumper I

living in the future

when we can slow down and out of high speed.

and that can't

do

if

you

it all

relaxing pace

Family vorites

one

is

He

live in

relax

we

notes that

often don't shift is

the present

moment there is no stress. We but we can time-shift into a more

the

some of the

time.

strengthen families.

One

of

my

fa-

the high-low report at dinner, in which every-

at the table tells

happened that

day.

about the best and worst thing that

Goodbye and

sons,

games of Cranium, and bed

walls

around the

family. I

know

hello hugs, music lestalks build protective

of one family

around their neighborhood every night checking on their neighbors, the

The

sticker,

and that even

teaches the present

the time,

rituals

He

were here."

his

three things adults

flora,

who

walks

after supper,

and the fauna.

remember with

the greatest

pleasure from their childhoods are family meals, time

outdoors, and family vacations. So, Laura, encourage

your families to eat together, go on vacations, and spend time in the natural world.

117

Mary Pipher

Good teach,

They center of the universe." And they

parents are antidotes to advertising.

"You are not the

teach the meaning of "enough." Parents are the people

who

help children build meaning from

information they are bombarded with

with young children,

it is

all

the complex

daily.

Especially

important to keep the informa-

tion they are expected to absorb relatively simple.

My

when her mother explains

too

niece has a phrase she uses

much

at once,

"TMI, Mom."

TMI

stands for too

much

information. Plato said education

is

teaching our children to find

pleasure in the right things. teaches us to love

all

the

We

wrong

live in a culture that

things. If we don't inter-

act very intentionally with the broader culture

unhealthy, stressed, addicted, and broke.

I

hope you can

help your clients find good things to love.

been to Farmer's Market?

118

we end up Have they

17

Emotional Weather

August 17

Hi, Laura. I

hope you

are having a great time at

Lake Okoboji.

We vacationed there when our kids were small. There is nothing

do well

like a

beach for children. But graduate students

on beaches,

You missed an

too.

incredible day in Nebraska. Yesterday

morning was blue and calm. By noon grees, gray,

it

was ninety de-

and windy. Henry James, no doubt under the

influence of a balmy, blossom-filled day in the country, said the

most

beautiful phrase in the English language

was "summer afternoon."

He

never visited Nebraska.

Late afternoon black clouds rolled

in.

The

sky turned

greenish and a tornado formed south of town.

The tem-

perature dropped forty degrees in two hours and peasized hail peppered our lawn.

119

But by sunset the sky was

Mary Pipher

again clear and a hailstones.

believe

all

full

moon

rose over yards filled with

Even experiencing that weather

it

firsthand, I could hardly

happened on the same

There's Nebraska weather with

its

day.

highs of 110 and

lows of 30 below zero and there's Los Angeles weather.

My son, who lived in Los Angeles for a while, said, "We laugh at the weather forecasts.

The

It's

always partly sunny.

temperature only changes by a few degrees."

Places have different ranges of weather, and so do

mood swings, we are people who cope daily with

humans. In intensity of feelings and not created equal. There are

the equivalent of tornadoes, while others bask in perpetual ocean breezes.

The most extreme

which every day people

order, in

tion and

emotional weather

is

oscillate

bipolar dis-

between

extreme weather plagued

grief. Slightly less

ela-

my

client

Maggie, who laughed and cried every session.

What

she loved, she loved so

swell.

What

hurt.

On

tickled her

it

made her

made her laugh

heart

until her sides

the other hand, the smallest slight caused her

to sob in despair.

emotions.

much

Once

She was often

adrift

on

a

heaving sea of

she wailed, "I have mixed feelings about

everything." Another time

Maggie

said to

me, "You have

no idea how many ups and downs have ravaged me

in

the last twenty- four hours."

my friend Raymond is always relaxed and When he told me about his mother's death, I

In contrast, sanguine.

was more emotional than he was. Dorothy Parker once

120

letters to a

described

man

a

similar to

Raymond

emotions ran the gamut from

The weather its

virtues.

in

Many

young therapist

"His

derisively,

A to B."

both Nebraska and Los Angeles has

creative people,

who

have intense and

changeable moods, are exciting and popular.

They

generally warm-hearted, enthusiastic, and effusive virtues if not carried too

far.

But they can

are

—

all

also be high

maintenance and their partners often report weariness with their storm-tossed charm. Folks with Los Angeles

weather are reliable and steady can be dull their

as rocks, too.

more emotional

as rocks.

However, they

Their forbearance can

partners, or

it

stabilize

can put them to

sleep.

In therapy

we

braska weather. repairing the

are

more

They come

damage from

stress-management

skills

mism and emotional

likely to see

people with

to us because they all

those storms.

Ne-

need help

They need

and training in learned opti-

intelligence.

They

are

more

likely

to have trouble with addictions because they often seek

chemical help in the hope of controlling the turbulence. (As

Tom Waits put it,

me

than

a frontal

"I'd rather

have a bottle in front of

lobotomy")

When the Los Angelenos are in therapy it's often because

someone

them our job

is

else

wants them to

to create a

little

feel

something. With

storm system and then

We want

teach

them

them

to pay attention to their feelings and not to re-

to describe

it

in an interesting way.

spond to

all

questions about their emotional states by

saying, "I

am

fine."

121

Mary Pipher

We

could speculate on ideal emotional weather.

However,

just as

preferences.

with real weather, people have different

Some

people

like

flamboyant poets, others

staid engineers. I

would pick someplace

to live with weather like

Boulder. Nestled between the mountains and the plains, it

has four seasons, but none of them

its

falls

too harshly on

The snow is generally light and doesn't last Summer days blister, but it cools down at night.

residents.

long.

Most of the tivities. I

time, the climate

right for

is

kinds of ac-

have a few Boulder-esque friends

deeply appreciate.

They are

degrees,

Los Angeles weather.

then

want something more

that say about

whom

I

exciting, yet stable.

Anyway, today in Nebraska,

I'll

all

me?

122

it's

breezy and seventy

I will like it for a

exciting.

while,

Now what does

18

Swimming

August 28

Dear Laura,

mometer by this,

my

got back from

I just

what

the bank read 101 degrees.

else

The

afternoon swim.

On

a

ther-

day

can one do but swim? Generally

I

like

swim

ten laps, then read in the sun for fifteen minutes, usually the

New

Yorker,

although right

Master of the Senate,

back

in.

The

Beaver City.

and often

I

I live

the

is

reading Caro's

The

I

dive

movement,

refreshing and soothing.

more

my summers

I

respect swimming. As a

in the chlorinous pool in

pool opened at 1:00 and closed at 9:00

was there

tanning, and eating

tenance.

am

contrast between languor and

longer

kid, I spent

I

summer book. Then

a great

hot and cool, sun and water

The

now

all

eight hours, splashing, bobbing,

Mounds

Words cannot

bars and Popsicles for sus-

describe what a

123

swimming pool

Mary Pipher

meant

to us in a

1950s.

By August my body was cocoa brown and

little

farming town in Nebraska in the

my blond hair glistened a slimy green. In junior high my son was an extroverted

itchy,

and

"I

enjoyed school and school enjoyed me," he said years

But

later.

a

comedian.

in high school

he swam laps four or

day and eventually became a

state

five

hours

champion swimmer.

By now, many competitive swimmers wear underwater headphones and

Zeke

music while they swim. But

listen to

didn't have anything but his

occupied.

What swimming

own mind

to keep

him

gave him, as a testosterone-

adolescent, was four hours a day to think. In fact,

filled

swimming

laps, there

deepened him

as

it

was nothing to do but think.

swimmers from

did other serious

It

his

era.

Swimming water, whether

swim tub

it is

I

ages. a

Kids

bliss

muddy

have been

out by

creek, or a

at the

YWCA

the arthritis class gathers. Elderly people

walk gingerly into the pool

down

all

an ocean beach,

in the backyard.

when

pool

helps people of

area,

wincing

as

they go

the ladders and shivering in the tepid water. But

after

an hour of water aerobics they are talking and jok-

ing.

Their pain abates and, when they leave the pool,

they

move more

Swimming bodies. It

is

easily.

relaxes, massages,

and awakens punished

therapy for anxious and depressed people,

and people with health problems and chronic pain.

When

I

wrote the book on refugees,

traumatized people. Often

I

124

I

befriended

many

gave them swim passes.

letters to a

Many

reported that

their lives.

The

swimming was

young therapist

the best thing in

rush of endorphins and the sensual,

soothing nature of swimming helped them heal. I

my

took up swimming after a physical therapist told

stress-induced back pain

She was

wake up of the

my

By now,

right.

muscles

all

am

warm I

as I proceed.

if I

hooked.

totally

splash, the caress of the water,

physical things,

paddle

I

would disappear

And,

as I

I

and the way

do these good

way I

difficult conversations.

feel the

ing,

way

a

I

am

person might

I

lines

emerge

feel after jogging,

meditat-

a great massage.

swimming

course,

When

my

healthier mentally and physically. I

and then receiving

Of

I

solved thorny prob-

lems. I re-enjoy the happiest events. I rehearse

from the water

As

my last swim. I revisit tense

interactions and reexamine the

upcoming

love the

breaststroke and crawl, I review

the significant events since

for

swam.

give myself underwater therapy.

my version of the

me

isn't for

people quilt or play tennis or

golf.

everybody. Other

You may

find

some-

thing equally calming for you and your clients, although, I

don't think anything beats swimming.

primordial.

We

lived in water,

are

made of

Swimming

water, once long ago

we

and with swimming we return to water.

125

is

19

Danger

September

2

Dear Laura, This morning there the

air.

a

study window.

lilies

an end-of-summer feeling in

Birds are clumping

band music from

my

is

bloom

up on the

Marching-

nearby high school blares through

The

asters, sunflowers,

and surprise

in the gardens. Last night I

Holmes Dam. For

a long time, I

mice in the yellow

grasses.

I've

wires.

watched

walked on

a red fox stalk

been pondering your question, "What do you

wish you had learned in school?" During

Ph.D. training,

I

listened to lectures

my five years of

on brain anatomy,

the philosophy of science, schizophrenia, and the benefits

of community programs.

I

learned

how

trances, interpret responses to inkblots,

127

to induce

and write

a

Mary Pipher

report.

and even In

me

But nobody warned if I

was

that unless

might get

careful, I

I

was

careful,

hurt.

my graduate-school days I heard only one mention

of danger

—from

broken by toe, she

worker who had several bones

a social

Bandaged from top

a delinquent teenager.

to

wryly admonished me, "Never get between an

out-of-control adolescent and the door."

A

few years ago,

attended a standing-room-only

I

workshop on violence. The presenter asked people the

room who had been

assaulted

room

hands. Two-thirds of the

by

did so.

people to again raise their hands

medical care because of

in

clients to raise their

if

Then he

asked

they had required

a client's assault.

therapists in our small, relatively safe state

A

hundred

had been

seri-

ously hurt by their clients or their clients' relatives. It

makes sense that

violence.

We

therapists

would be victims of

deal with alcoholics, people with anger-

control problems, psychopaths, people in crises, and the seriously mentally

ment

hearings.

ill.

We

We testify in custody and commit-

report child abuse and neglect. If

teenagers are about to

we

tell

kill

their parents.

methamphetamine

We see people

themselves or someone

We

addicts,

else,

counsel gang members,

and paranoid gun owners.

referred by employers because they scare

their coworkers. Doctors, schoolteachers, family

mem-

and employers send us their out-of-control people.

bers,

Generally therapists have no training in self-defense.

Most pists

offices

do not have police or

security.

work alone and some do home

128

Many

visits to

thera-

people they

letters to a

of my former students had a place-

have never met.

One

ment

Coast

at a

in an East

city that involved

working nights

walk-in drug treatment program in a rough neigh-

borhood. She was lucky she wasn't In

my

practice

don't see

I

time,

most

I

turn

down

killed.

many

court-ordered into therapy and,

my

young therapist

sociopathic clients.

therapists don't have.

Still,

clients

who

are

can spot them in

if I

That

is

a luxury

over the years, I've had

share of menacing phone calls and people threaten-

when I was

ing to hurt me. There have been times

my home

ful that

unpublished.

address and phone the Christmas

I recall

death threat by a stalker cried as

I

watched

who

I'd

number were

was pondering

I

worked with

my five-year-old

grate-

a

briefly. I

daughter play carols

with other Suzuki violinists in the brightly

lit

lobby of a

bank. She and her friends looked so innocent and vulnerable. Outside

snow turned our

Part of being safe

is

sessions, although this

we have an that

may

city

dark and cold.

being judicious in what

is

a

complicated

issue.

We may have

say in

Sometimes

ethical responsibility to tell clients to

put us in danger.

we

do things

to insist clients

protect their children from sexually abusive relatives by calling the police. In general, however, tell

people what to do.

We present choices,

and help people predict their own control

how we

our job

is

clarify issues,

futures. But,

we

are quoted outside our sessions.

clients tell their families that

we

not to

can't

Many

said they should

do

something that they wanted to do. Only, unfortunately, the clients hadn't the courage to

129

own

their decisions.

Mary Pipher

once held

I

terly

a session

about her mate and,

nounced she would seek slow down and home and told

swore

spoke

encouraged her to

a divorce. I

consider marital therapy. But she drove

her husband that

at

me

The

had advised her to

I

next day her husband

for a while, then threatened to beat

me up. Fortunately, I was able to talk him down. Many therapists don't discuss scary incidents their colleagues because they fear they will be

for mishandling things.

That

a big mistake.

is

can signal each other

happens during

a session.

life

Take

Have an

a self-defense course.

in sessions

Don't

private.

talk

and don't have family

mementos on

pictures and other

blamed

something alarming

if

Keep your home phone and address about your personal

with

Talk with your colleagues about

office plan for danger.

how you

bit-

end of the hour, an-

at the

seek an immediate separation. called,

woman who

with a

Don't box

display.

People

clients in figuratively or literally.

who

feel

trapped can be dangerous. If a client scares you, respect that feeling. If a situa-

tion feels unsafe, don't go into exit quickly

assess for also for

and

cautiously.

You have

are in,

a responsibility to

and for other people involved in the

clients

case. If there are risks,

—have an

with attorneys, or

do what must be done to protect

extra therapist in the

call

Laura, this letter ally

you already

if

danger constantly, not only for yourself, but

your

everyone

it;

is

room, consult

the police.

not meant to frighten you.

an ounce-of-prevention

letter.

130

Our

field

It's

re-

tends to be

letters to a

in denial about danger.

gentle trusting people

For the most

who

find

it

stalked

by

to lie a

part, therapists are

hard to believe anyone

would hurt them. But forewarned

want you

is

forearmed.

awake nights trembling

red fox.

131

young therapist

like a

I

don't

mouse

1

20

Therapy and Writing

September

1

Capetown, South Africa

Dear Laura, Last year on September 11 our daughter was in

Capetown. Along with about Sara.

our other

all

fears,

we worried

How would she make it home with her flight

cancelled and perhaps a

war or another

terrorist attack

on the way?

By

coincidence,

one year

later. I

am working

in

South Africa exactly

have driven through the glorious bloom-

ing prairie to the

Mountain and

I

Cape of Good Hope.

felt its

I

hiked Table

"tablecloth" of deep fog surround

toured the poor township of Langa and the District

me.

I

Six

Museum, Capetown's

version of the Holocaust

133

Mary Pipher

Museum.

Robben

I visited

was imprisoned for

Today

my

have thought about

I

daughter.

Africa, she

Island

When

last

was out of step with the

write. I said,

me

"For

September

writing

know how people who

rest of us.

a

recommended

is

the best therapy.

and

way to

that she I

don't

don't write survive."

you asked me recently which

were asking which of my kids your question, realizing

For many

As

I

years, I

liked most,

I

writing or doing therapy, you stumped me.

are.

1 1

Sara finally returned from South

deal with her intense grief,

When

where Nelson Mandela

thirty years.

I felt like

I prefer. Still, I

how

alike the

you

pondered

two enterprises

wrote in the mornings and did

therapy in the afternoon. Both jobs involve spending time in small rooms waiting for inspiration.

And both

possess a considerable amount of mumbo-jumbo. Writers

and therapists enact

themselves. I

rituals to

My trances involve

write, I drink coffee at

desks and drinks.

going.

When

I

do therapy,

ing notes and bottled water.

on both

When

my desk overlooking my garden.

My desk has all kinds of pens, paper, me

induce trances in

I

and pencils to keep

have legal pads for tak-

I try

to keep fresh flowers

desks.

With

either

kind

of work, ringing phones or

headaches can ruin our concentration. At the end of the

day our backsides hurt and we aren't sure anything lasting. We're

reemerge into the

real

a

little

if

shocked when we

world of traffic, our

the nightly news.

134

we've done

families,

and

letters to a

young therapist

Poet William Carlos Williams wrote, "Catch an eyecatch an earful, and don't drop what you have

ful,

caught." This advice to writers applies equally well to

The

psychotherapists.

tools of

our trade include our in-

warmth, and character structures.

tuition, intelligence,

Both jobs are highly disciplined endeavors that involve posing questions and generating problems to solve.

They

require laborious excavating for emotional truths.

Both kinds of work demand we use everything we've got all

the time.

Writer Rosellen Brown offered succinct advice for writers

—show up, pay

be attached to

results.

therapists either.

That

is

give the

must detach from success or

And

too hard. like trying

ing liked. I

not

bad

a

and don't

set of rules for

Both writers and therapists walk

we must

tightrope;

attention, tell the truth,

work our failure.

all,

a

and yet we

Otherwise,

we

try

trying too hard at therapy or writing

is

too hard at sleeping, having an orgasm, or be-

It

doesn't work.

studied four years as an undergraduate and five

my

years as a graduate student to get

psychology, but

I

sense in which

where they

taught myself to write.

all

study, are self-taught.

We

ginning. After a decade of hard work,

the time.

and

writer, I

By then

process. But

I

Still,

writers and therapists,

and then correcting mistakes. Nobody

a therapist

Ph.D. in

knew what

I

learn is

this level

135

there

is

a

no matter by making

good

in the be-

I felt that,

both

as

was doing most of

had good habits and

beyond

clinical

a sense for the

of competence,

I

kept

Mary Pipher

learning. People are peculiar

and nothing ever happens

twice.

Over

time, competent writers and therapists develop

a voice. Ideally this voice expresses one's best inner

knowledge.

Work done

with a true voice looks natural

and easy to observers. But most of us must struggle to find a voice that

beams through

our work.

all

In writing and therapy nothing

than

a likable guide.

Molly

With

Bill

more important

Mover, Mary Oliver, or

Ivans, I'd enjoy a ride to the recycling center.

unsavory characters,

dull or

Paris.

With

is

I

would dread

a trip to

Great guides are humble, competent, kind, and

They emanate an unusual mix of innocence and sophistication. Most important of all, good guides are calm.

trustworthy and inspire others.

Therapy and writing both ask

their subjects to react

emotionally. After reading a good book, readers are

changed.

And

Silent Spring, ever. After a

truly great works, such as

War and

profound therapy session

to reexamine the

way they

live their lives.

of all good people are good prayers."

"Maybe

truly

is."

better

The

life if I

I

haven't really seen

The

my

for-

clients are willing

Catholic father says of his son's Buddhism,

says,

Peace,

and The Good Earth change the world

The

"The

rigid

prayers

bitter

husband

wife the

way she

alcoholic thinks, "Perhaps

I

could have a

gave up booze."

Both jobs require

a certain

amount of verbal

ness, but glibness also can get in the way.

Writing that

too elegant distracts the reader. And, believe

136

clever-

it

or not,

is

I

letters to a

once saw

a therapist

demonstrate

a

young therapist

fancy-schmancy

The

technique while calling the client the wrong name. client

was not impressed.

Writers and therapists expose the unexposed. These whistleblower jobs are risky and punishing.

We

who commit the crime of telling the people who have deeply vested interests

are sub-

versives

truth, often

to

in

lies.

We

say to the daughter, "You can talk about the abuse

you

experienced from your stepfather."

companies,

"We know you

dren and that

is

are advertising to our chil-

live

twice

perience events and a second time in their work. Writers

nents. Writers call

when we Both

say to tobacco

wrong."

Writers and therapists

For therapists

We

it is

it

—

first

when they ex-

when they

use

them

and therapists face worthy oppothe inner critic or writer's block.

resistance.

We

can only be successful

learn to confront and conquer that opponent. therapists

and writers work

at the

edge of our

envelopes. Faulkner wrote, "Writing a novel

is

like try-

ing to knock together a chicken coop in the middle of a hurricane." Somerset

Maugham

observed, "There are

three secrets to writing a novel. Unfortunately

knows what they

Our work

no one

are."

as therapists is

complex and ambiguous.

Success remains elusive and temporary. Writers must continually fight our awareness that

enough or

skilled

enough

to

we simply

human beings. Both jobs 137

are not smart

do what we want

Therapists constantly discover that pable of changing

we

to do.

aren't ca-

are frustrating,

Mary Pipher

demanding, and fraught with emotional

peril,

and they

are the best jobs around.

As William Stafford

said, "It's

really fun if you

it."

can stand

Many therapists speak of their gratitude

that they are

And

over

said she

was

allowed the honor of doing the work they do. the years

I

wards

—

who

have never met anyone

sorry she was

a writer.

Both kinds of work share great

lives lived intensely

and

fully,

that are close to the heart of matters.

we have

this

Laura,

I

We're damn lucky

work.

hope sometime you can

leave here with

In Langa,

visit

Capetown.

my heart aching and my mind

women washed

their clothes

piled

on

place.

And yet,

tree,

street corners,

meat

for the

poor

I'll

churning.

by hand

water pump, and sheep heads covered with

Another

re-

and conversations

at a

flies

lone

were

in that sad

the jacaranda trees rained purple flowers.

tree, called the yesterday, today,

and tomorrow

blossomed in three colors, white, pink, and

red.

Now that's an image a poet or therapist could turn into a

metaphor.

138

Part

IV:

Fall

21

Ethics

September 20

Dear Laura, Let pist

me

tell

you the story about an unlicensed thera-

who wreaked havoc

guy found

a lonely rich

hour-long sessions

Alone in

his office

a

in

my hometown.

This smarmy

woman, and he scheduled

day with her, seven days

with the

woman

a

several

week.

and her checkbook,

he managed to seduce her and bilk her of her fortune.

Then when

she was broke, he abandoned her. She re-

sponded by swallowing a

a bottle

mental breakdown. Her

fallout of her collapse

of sleeping

pills

relatives, left to deal

and had with the

and her newfound poverty, re-

ported the therapist to the health department. As quickly as

he blew into town, he blew back out. By now, no

doubt, he

is

defrauding clients in another

141

state.

Mary Pipher

Thank goodness

This guy was not

this one.

For the most

nal.

there are not

"hot water"

fall

many stories

ther),

bad

as

just unethical,

he was crimi-

who

land in ethical

part, psychologists

into three categories; greedy manipula-

whose therapy

tors (mercifully few), inadequate people clients are their

as

only relationships (not

many of these

ei-

and isolated or burned-out therapists who lose

perspective (the largest group). Fortunately, psychology

has the

Some

Code of

Ethics to protect us and our clients.

of the time the code and a few guidelines are

famous dictum, "Physician, do no

cient. Hippocrates's

harm," applies to

many

goodbye advice to us

situations as does

my

mother's

"Be kind to each other."

kids,

In clinical practice as in

life,

there are

many problems

that these simple guidelines don't address.

I

am

about using and sharing diagnoses with

flicted

suffi-

con-

clients,

insurance companies, or institutions. Diagnoses are

reasonably subjective. But even diagnosis

compelling,

is

one unless

I

I

am

when

still

the evidence for a

uneasy about labeling any-

can see that the benefits will outweigh the

costs. I

worked with

a

boy who could probably have been

labeled as having obsessive compulsive disorder. Oliver

washed

his

hands so often they were chaffed and he in-

sisted that every object

He

worried

haircuts.

far

too

he owned be in

much about

right place.

homework and

his

Diagnosing Oliver might have qualified him

for extra services at school.

might

his

its

affect his

own and

But

I

other's

142

worried

how

view of him.

the label Finally, I

letters to a

decided

we could

parents and

I

young therapist

help Oliver without labeling him. His

could discuss

how

him from

to distract

his

ruminations. His family doctor could write a prescription if necessary.

None

we

of this required that

officially

diagnose Oliver.

We trigger.

can't anticipate

all

of the events that a label

may

They

lead

Diagnoses give and they taketh away.

us into and out of swamps. Before selves,

"Why

are

we doing

clients get the help they

diagnose, ask our-

Will a diagnosis allow

this?

need?

we

Can

the diagnosis hurt

the client?"

Another

ethical issue concerns the difference be-

tween understanding and approval. After clients for a while, I find

act as they do.

But

I

it

I

have seen

easy to understand

must work

why

they

to not confuse under-

standing with condoning. Sometimes the distinction crystal clear. fires

An abused child may torment animals or set

—understandable behaviors, but

terrible ones. I

care for the child, but dislike his behavior. is

harder.

duces

is

A man

raised

my knowledge

Other times

by cold parents repeatedly

women, then abandons them.

I

someone

it

se-

must make sure

of his history doesn't cloud

that his attachment issues are

can

my awareness

else's

heartbreak.

This separation of understanding and judgment

re-

quires a certain mental finesse. Racists are an example of this

thorny problem.

with came from

sympathy

The worst

racist I ever

a hateful, abusive family.

for the

man, who

kinder than his parents.

He

in

great

some ways was much

sobbed

143

worked

I felt

in

my

office at the

Mary Pipher

thought that his wife might leave him and take the

member

dren. But he was a

and somehow

him

of a white supremacy group

had to deal with that

I

work with him

that I couldn't

this group. I so

if

fact.

Finally

He

left

I

told

he remained with

deeply rejected his ideology that

aged our relationship.

chil-

it

dam-

without paying and never

returned.

Another her

affair

client

with

wealthy

this

marry

a

married man.

man

her. I told

Her

I

of

goal was to convince

to leave his wife

her that

stress

and three kids and

didn't help clients reach goals

would harm them or other people.

that I believed I

wanted help dealing with the

worked with

a

woman who

dealt with

ness and anger by shopping. This

all

woman was

her sad-

depressed,

but not about shopping, which was her one pleasure in life. I

made

it

a personal goal to steer this client

toward

volunteer work, walks, and good books.

Laura,

I

don't

tell

exemplary work. In sure left

I

you these

fact, in all

cafes.

at the

am

not

The

I

white supremacist

The gold digrich man, and I now see them

when he came

ger eventually married the

almost weekly

my

these examples,

even did the right thing.

therapy angrier than

stories to illustrate

in.

movies, the grocery store, or in

Very awkward! The shopping

client didn't like to

walk on anything but pavement and she preferred playing the lottery to reading Willa Cather. I tell

enced

you these

my

stories to

show

work. Over the years

ended up back

my values influmany of my clients that

in college, playing classical music, or do-

144

young therapist

letters to a

ing volunteer work,

of what some theorists suggest,

we

value highly. In spite

all activities I

shouldn't be value neutral.

we

can't claim to be

Our

responsibility

is

and

to be

honest with our clients about our values. Therapists are sometimes naive about

who

ber one therapist

remem-

dated a convicted murderer re-

cently released from our state prison. jerk, interested

evil. I

He

was

clearly a

only in her body and her apartment, but

she claimed she could see the good in him. Well

maybe.

.

.

virtually

but

she was so nonjudgmental as to have

I felt

no common

Compassion

is

sense.

only useful

when coupled with

clear-

headedness. Being big-hearted and fuzzy-minded can get us in trouble. evaluate

who

One

of our ethical responsibilities

is

to

has the likelihood of harming others and

to take steps to protect potential victims. If we suspect a

man might assault his girlfriend, we have a duty to warn her. If we know an adolescent is shooting up heroin, we need to

tell his

parents and find

him

treatment.

we have an ethical responsibility to know that we don't know everything. Every heart is a mystery, Finally,

but some mysteries are harder to fathom than others.

can be

a stretch for middle-class

It

whites to understand

the issues of African- Americans, the disabled, refugees,

or the poor. Unless

we make

a real effort to learn

about

the environments that our clients experience, our advice is

be ridiculous.

likely to

Older

clients

eighty and

I can't

humble me.

I

imagine what

145

am it

a

long way from age

feels like. It

seems pre-

Mary Pipher

sumptuous

to give advice to

experiences

life

I

haven't encountered.

know how to cope with

my friends, see,

many

and

someone who has had many

How

the loss of my mate,

my home?

older clients.

Yet

And

I

would

I

my siblings,

have seen, and you will

amazingly, sometimes

we

actually help them.

With

the exception of the fly-by-night, low-life

snake-oil salesperson, or the seriously misinformed, no-

body becomes

a therapist to get rich.

enough money, though, and,

make more.

If we did,

we'd

our profession. Almost

we want to

help.

all

Therapists

make

we

don't

in a way, I'm glad

attract

more

of us are in

rotten apples to

this

work because

We like people and they like us back.

146

1

22

Story Doctors

September

2

Dear Laura,

On wood

this

day in 1944,

my

parents married in a red-

forest in Mill Valley, California.

military uniforms.

The sun was

They wore

their

shining and afterward

they went with their friends to an Armenian restaurant

on Geary

Street in San Francisco.

beautiful city

man

when

They had met

in that

Avis was an officer and Frank a sea-

second-class assigned to shine officer's shoes. Both

were good-looking, energetic, and adventurous. As dad put

was

a

it,

my

"We'd try anything once." Their courtship tale,

sometimes fanny, but in retrospect,

filled

with foreshadowing of their future

dramatic

poignant and

troubles as husband and wife.

My

folks

grateful that

have been dead for

my

mother was

147

many

years, but I

a storyteller.

As

I

am

rode

Mary Pipher

along with her on house

me

hundreds of

and to

calls

hospitals, she told

stories. Fifty-eight years after the

new-

lyweds stood under a redwood and said their vows, parents

shimmer

Yesterday,

I

in

my

my memory.

ran into an old client of mine at the gro-

cery store. Hal was wearing a shirt with a logo designed to look collegiate, only his college

was Euphoric

That made me smile because, years to see

me

with depression.

He

was

State.

Hal had come

ago,

a truck driver with a

how to help him until I asked questions about his past: "What do you know about your birth? Were you a wanted child? What dull, solitary life. I couldn't figure

were you first

like as a

young boy?

out

How did you handle your

day of school?" Hal had no answers to those ques-

tions.

When

swered,

"We

I

asked about family vacations, he an-

never took one."

family friends, he said,

"My

When

I

inquired about

folks kept to themselves." I

asked about hobbies and interests and Hal shook his head. Hal had almost

or stories of his adult

He was

a sad,

no memories from

life.

In

fact,

his

childhood

Hal had only one

story.

bored bachelor.

Hal's folks lived isolated, suspicious lives. His dad

had been nicknamed bered, but which

and low energy

I

Lumpy for reasons no one remem-

suspected related to lack of charisma

level.

Lumpy prohibited

talk at

meals or

while he was driving. When Hal spoke up, his dad would reply by saying, "Who do you think you are?" Or, "If

you think you're so damn smart. ..." Hal quickly learned not to volunteer information. Hal's

148

mom kept to

young therapist

letters to a

She clearly didn't think she was so smart. His

herself.

ter

sis-

was much older than Hal and married when she was

sixteen. After dinner

Lumpy worked

shop and Eva

in his

read True Romance or crocheted silently in her bedroom.

The

loudest sound in the house was the grandfather

clock that chimed every fifteen minutes. Hal said, "I liked that clock."

We

couldn't redo Hal's childhood, but

construct

it.

new ones

I

re-

helped him discover old stories and invent

His parents were dead, but

for himself.

him

structed

we could

to call his sister

help filling in what

and

his aunt

dubbed "the missing

I

I in-

and ask for years."

He

wrote down their memories and we embellished them.

For example,

remembered how much he

his sister

baking day. His

mom

and aunt would bake Swedish rye

warm chunk

bread on Saturdays. Hal would slather

a

with butter and cinnamon sugar and go

sit

the maple tree to eat

ways hungry. life

theme

flavor of

We

it.

made

these slivers of a

from do

a

deep appreciation for the

and for human connections. And he

I

as al-

memories into

He'd always been hungry

hunger, which he was

out back in

His aunt remembered him

—he'd always had

life.

liked

now ready to

for adventures

still

had that deep

satisfy.

gave Hal the assignment to bring in adventures his current life every

this,

stories

week. Hal doubted he could

but not surprisingly,

he found them.

encouraged him

moments.

I

when he

When he

started looking for

shared them with me,

to recall significant details

I

and sparkling

asked about the meaning of events, such as

149

Mary Pipher

running into an old classmate or helping an older lady with a

The

flat tire.

As we

talked, these

high school classmate,

memories expanded.

who had been happy

to see

him, allowed Hal to reevaluate some of his school expe-

The

rience as positive.

incident

flat tire

became

a story

about his big heart and the rewards of helping others.

There

a big difference

is

interesting lives and people difference

is

storytelling.

larly compelling.

between people who've had

who

are interesting.

That

Events alone are not particu-

Story illuminates motive, desire, and

the complexities of the

human

heart. Just as

good

stories

create healthy people and cultures, sick stories yield dispirited people

We need

and

cultures.

therapists are primarily storytellers.

stories that allow

them

optimistic ways. Therapist Jay pists to

Most

clients

view the world in more

to

Haley encouraged thera-

help their clients conceptualize themselves as he-

roes of epics.

He

comedy." Better selves as

more

Once

I

saw

spoke of "turning tragedy into musical stories allow

our clients to see them-

heroic, passionate, and interesting. a

grandmother burdened with the care of

her cocaine-addicted son's child. Miriam was whipped

when

she came in

—depressed,

low-energy, and over-

whelmed by her burdens. She saw her drudgery and herself as drab and out the

first

future as

pitiable.

unending

Crying through-

session, she said, "I don't think you can help.

Even God couldn't help me." Since she was Catholic,

I

thought she might be receptive to

Teresa comparison.

I

told her that her mission

150

a a

strong

Mother

was to help

young therapist

letters to a

the small and weak. Care of her grandson was important

and noble work. called,

I said,

"You can be proud that when duty

you came running." That comparison

the dirty diapers and crying baby away, but a sense of honor.

we looked

it

didn't take

gave Miriam

She agreed to return and, when she

for resources for her.

I said,

did,

"Even Mother

Teresa had a support system."

Many

couples need

new

stories.

Argumentative

We

tionships can be refrained as passionate.

rela-

can com-

pare their turbulence to that of more glamorous couples,

such

as

Madonna and Guy

Ritchie or Katherine and

Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew. At the same time

we can

harness

all

suggest that our clients have the stability to

that energy and turn

Refugees often construct

it

new

into sustained passion.

They come

stories.

America with memories of victimhood. they can recall with pride. Often they

I

ask

to

them what

remember

acts of

courage or generosity. Small changes in their stories can

have big implications for

identity.

A young woman from

Bosnia remembers that she protected her

sister

ing raped by pushing her behind a door diers came.

This

memory

instead of just soiled. All

rubble

we

is

when

from bethe sol-

allows her to feel noble

not

a wasteland.

Amongst the

can help our clients find buried treasure.

As Isak Dinesen

said, "All

they are put in a story."

We

sorrows can be borne

can help make our

narratives richer,

more complex, and

common way

do that

to

is

hopeful.

to respond to

client's

The most

any sad story

— with the question "What did you gain from 151

if

this

expe-

Mary Pipher

rience?" Amazingly

I

have never had

who

a client

didn't

gain something.

am proud

I

to report that

the produce section, he told

when

me

best story I've ever heard. He's

was

about

a real story,

a trip

ran into Hal in

I

a story. It wasn't the

no Studs

Terkel. But

he took with

to Yellowstone National Park.

car and ate their provisions.

A bear

his girlfriend

broke into their

Hal chased

was loved in the story and he was

a hero.

"Euphoric State" T-shirt reflected

it

a

it

He

away.

Indeed Hal's

new

reality for

him.

My

parents didn't live happily ever after; they lived

turbulently ever

rather like Katherine and Petru-

But they were both

chio. I

after,

storytellers

experienced a rich childhood. Very

adult girl.

life

that doesn't

Sometime

remind

this fall

put aside cases and just

me

and because of that little

happens in

of a story

I

heard as a

during supervision, Laura, tell stories.

They have

humans sane during long, dark seasons tions.

152

for

my

let's

kept us

many genera-

23

Resistance

October 4

Dear Laura, Iraqis have a saying:

dog, but not one

who

is

"You can wake up

a sleeping

pretending to be asleep." This

morning's paper featured a picture of

Emma, who

I'd

seen as a sullen, recalcitrant teenager. She was a PK, a preacher's kid,

whose parents brought her

wouldn't eat meals with the family.

uated at the top of her law-school think that

now she was

Emma has just gradclass. I

parents.

first session,

my

my window When I said I

she stared out

with her arms crossed over her chest. hated to waste

chuckled to

utilizing the debating skills she'd

honed on me and on her At Emma's

in because she

time and her parents' money, she

me a river." She began talking only after I mentioned how restful she was after all my talkative quipped, "Cry

153

Mary Pipher

Then

clients.

she didn't

she talked nonstop.

listen.

So

The problem was

looked for ways into her

I listened. I

world, for metaphors that might touch her, and

ways

my

to

frame her situation.

opinion and, after

yawned

I

new

waited for her to ask for

few sessions, she

a

that

did.

She

theatrically while I answered, but she actually

followed some of my suggestions. always

I

skill

Emma

let

have the

last

Once

in dealing with stubbornness.

best shot, she

word, an important she'd taken her

would calm down and be

Then

during that grace period,

point.

We waltzed

really

embraced therapy, but

make her admit

way

this

she

it,

for

I

less defensive.

could sneak in a small

many months. She never

as

long

made some

as

no one

tried to

By

the time

progress.

Emma terminated, she was sharing meals with her family. Psychologist Carl Rogers spoke of the paradox of

change

when

—that

people only seriously consider change

who they are. Resispart of the human condition.

they feel accepted for exactly

tance to change

is

a natural

Whenever I hear someone cism well,"

I

want

described as "not taking

to ask,

"Who

criti-

does take criticism

well?"

We all want progress, but we don't like change, especially

change imposed from the outside.

crushing our problems, certainty.

generally prefer

And when push comes

to trade our

To

we

No

to shove,

matter

them

we

to un-

don't want

problems for the problems of anybody

a certain extent,

we

are our problems.

to lose our identity.

154

To

how

lose

else.

them

is

letters to a

We

we

can't

write in his journal and exercise daily.

The Our

therapists can lead a horse to water, but

make him truth

is,

people do exactly what they want to do.

biggest challenge

many therapists

helping people want to do what's in

is

their best interest.

if

young therapist

You have heard

does

it

the old joke.

"How

take to change a light bulb? One,

the light bulb wants to change." Education, example,

support, and exhortation

work,

all

if

the client sincerely

wants to change.

may come

People

to therapy because they are afraid

of losing someone they love, but often they don't want to

work

all

therapy as don't

therapy."

More

Many

my

settled

drinking. I'm working

parent has quit smoking

a

down when

him

to.

on

it

in

change in response to

often, people

kindergartner begged

use the

people off their backs. "Hey,

a tool to get

bug me about

love.

may

that hard. In fact, reluctant clients

Many

when her

an adolescent has

his grandparents

took him on

a

fishing trip. It's

impossible to stop a roaring

change

a river's flow

a small

dam.

It's

than to meet

One you

is

it

to say

by digging

river,

but you can

a small ditch

or building

almost always better to deflect resistance

head on. There are many ways to do

something

are saying, but there

like, "I is

or even better, "I wonder

agree with part of what

a small part I if

this.

wonder about,"

you have even the

slightest

doubts about your current position." Or, "I can see you dislike

what

I

am

consider trying

it

suggesting, but for a few days."

155

I

wonder

if

you would

Mary Pipher

You can client

who

story about a person similar to your

tell a

did things just a

little bit differently.

Or, you

can discuss the advantages for a person not to change,

and hope your

me

ask

answer

if

clients will argue

they have time to solve

is,

There

"You have two

are

just

When clients a problem, my favorite

with you.

enough time." power

rules for

struggles

—avoid them

or win them. In therapy, they are almost impossible to win. After

often

power

No way,

she would argue.

hundred reasons why she couldn't

Finally, I suggested a dog.

was threefold.

would

It

give

would crank out

Lynn agreed

a

would help her "get

And, walking her dog, Lynn

few endorphins.

my reasons,

to adopt a dog, not for

for her personal safety.

outdoors.

always

also provide her with a

topic of conversation, something that started" with other people.

Lynn

My thinking

Lynn an attachment,

would

curative with depression. It

Duke was

a

big dog

Soon Lynn was going

ther each day. Racing after cise

But

exercise even five

minutes a week.

romp

lives.

won indirectly. When I a shy woman who rarely had fun, I en-

couraged her to exercise. a

own

struggles can be

worked with Lynn,

had

charge of their

clients are in

all,

who

but

loved to

farther and far-

Duke gave her enough

exer-

and excitement that she didn't need medication. In

addition, she visited with

maintained

a

dog owners on the

constant supply of

Duke

trail

and she

stories for her

coworkers.

Motivating others involves an almost mystical of being "in tune" with them. This

156

is

called

state

by names

young therapist

letters to a

such

as

"being in sync" or "clicking."

when we

feel

We

nance," that refers to the innate ability of

occur

and accepting.

attentive

open says

to

when we

new

mammals

Change

sense each other's emotional states. likely to

know

all

it

Scientists have a term, "limbic reso-

it.

is

to

most

sense that the people with us are

When we

experiences.

we

feel that,

are

more

Composer Benjamin Zander

he knows when people click with him because they

have "shining eyes." Those shining eyes are good signs

you have connected with your

clients.

Often people come to us when they are ready to change. Timing properly,

can be very small and

it

improperly timed, of therapy

everything. If a suggestion

is

is

a

change

thunderbolt won't do much.

timed

a life. If

The

art

to be just a tad ahead of clients, to be ready

with a remark that makes the client I

still

is

say,

"That's just what

was thinking." Poorly timed interventions can be worse than none

at all

because they ruin the potential for later attempts

and they inspire

a great deal

erred in suggesting that

meeting

at a church.

of resistance. For example,

Lynn

I

attend a single-adults'

She didn't have the

social skills or

the confidence for that event and suffered an embarrass-

ing evening. Never again was

I

able to persuade her to

take that kind of risk. is

when

find ourselves not wanting to say something.

Most

Often

we

likely,

we

a

way

to

know

that our timing

are sensing that the client

what we have

is

off

not ready to hear

to say. Usually ignoring our

157

is

own

sense of

Mary Pipher

resistance tions.

is

a

People

bad

who

are

One

exception to this

is

addic-

hooked almost never want

to dis-

idea.

cuss their habits, and sometimes

it's

wait until they are ready. However,

too dangerous to

when

I

find myself

explaining too much, repeating, or arguing with clients, I

know I have

When selves,

hit a wall

and

I

won't be breaking

clients don't change,

we may think

"What? You're not taking

my

that.

down.

to our-

brilliant, carefully

considered, expertly delivered advice?" But

more complex than

it

life is

always

Emma's behavior toward me

wasn't about me. Personalizing resistance just makes

it

harder to overcome. Laura, use resistance to gather in-

formation about yourself and your

you can

truly avoid resistance

158

is

to

The only way stay home from work. clients.

24 Failures

October 10

Dear Laura,

You

are being too hard

on

portant theme in a discussion take.

yourself. xMissing an is

im-

not an irreparable mis-

Important material circulates over and over. You

will catch

it

next time.

In the ideal case, a client comes in with a problem,

and the therapist and the ing relationship.

client develop a respectful, car-

They solve

the immediate problem and

perhaps explore other aspects of the

client's life.

Then

the client terminates with an evaluation of the therapy

and feedback for the therapist on what was helpful.

The

therapist uses that last session to solidify gains, discuss potential problems and victories, and to praise the client for genuine growth.

pen

all

This best-case scenario doesn't hap-

that often.

159

Mary Pipher

You asked me once, "What about your

What were your

worst mistakes?"

swering you until today.

I

painful and a

It's

failures?

have avoided anlittle

humiliat-

ing to admit defeats. I've never had a client commit

anyone during our work, but

suicide or assault

a

few of

my screw-ups have been doozies. Some

failures

were predictable.

I've often

been unable

to help chaotic families with deeply entrenched problems,

especially if they rarely

showed up

for appointments.

Sadly, I never figured out

how to help

character disorders,

which

is

our academic way of describing people without

consciences. For a while

charmed, and fornicated

saw

I

man who

a

way through

his

character structure was set in cement and

I

cheated,

life.

Norm's

was

just an-

other person to hoodwink. Eventually Norm's business failed

because of his corrupt practices, but his long-suffer-

ing wife chose to stick

it

out.

"Time wounds

all

heels," but

my conversations and assignments, I wasn't of much help to Norm or his wife.

it

wounds

Other

their families, too.

were

failures

With

a surprise

—

clients

who seemed

reasonable, engaged in the process, and meeting their goals in

would suddenly drop out or sabotage the therapy

ways that wrested defeat from the jaws of victory. If the

deck was stacked against therapeutic success

from the beginning,

I

did only a brief postmortem.

I

"What could I have done differently? miss?" Then I'd move on without much

asked myself,

What more

did

I

soul searching.

for the therapy,

I

However,

would

if I

had held high hopes

feel pretty stung. Usually, I

160

letters to a

would

try to convince the client to

come

session to talk over our difficulties.

therapy with

my

approaches.

would

on

my own

I

office partners

toss

I

young therapist

one

in for

last

would replay the

and ask for alternative

and turn for nights, reflecting

stupidity.

In retrospect,

some mistakes were obvious.

long-term therapeutic relationship with

who appeared stable, married. Hannah had been a of three

I

a gentle

had

a

mother

hard working, and happily teenage alcoholic, but she

had achieved sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous. In her twenties she stole prescription drugs from the

pharmacy where she worked. She was rested.

drug

When I saw her in her thirties,

free.

The

fired

but not ar-

she claimed to be

puzzle was that, as a therapy client, she

reported almost no problems at

all.

She chatted amiably

about parenting and small tensions with her husband or coworkers. Occasionally

I

asked her

if

she was drinking

or doing drugs and she adamantly denied Tuesday, three hours after an appointment,

it.

But one

Hannah was

arrested for possession of cocaine. I

red

should have viewed Hannah's lack of problems as

Busy working people don't pay ninety bucks

flag.

an hour to chat.

I

with her husband, weirder than exercised

should have been in better contact

who

hell. I

my

had

But

all

and cost her

later told

my

me, "Hannah's been

suspicions."

I

should have

hate-it-but-do-it muscle and required

regular drug screens. lite.

a

Hannah was sweet and

I

was po-

that nicey-nice time landed her in prison a marriage.

161

Piphcr

I

I

three

worked with a bulimic

client

tried everything

y ears. I

named Rosemar.

—in-depth discus-

with her

sions of her past, feelings journals, food diaries, assertive-

management, cognitive-behavioral

raining, stress

therapy,

and

made no

progress and after a year

on eating

finally

even inpatient treatment. Rosemary

massed her

dis

Something she

our

said in

had gone awry Rosemary find the right

way

I,

on

said,

l

to help me."

new

to a

made

last session

u

am

it

therapist.

sorry you couldn't

I realized

she saw

can

fix

said,

I

me

as

would

my magic

eventually pull a cure. She was waiting for

should have

what

clear

possessing an infinite bag of tricks from which

arrive. I

book

the author of a

to

"I'm not a wizard. Only you

thing

One

my saddest cases was a teenage boy whose

of

llied

ra-

himself in a drunk driving accident. After the

came

dL Brandon

in with his mother.

The two of

them fought constandy. Brandon ran away from home, yelled at his

mom, and

stole

from

her.

suggested that perhaps Brar.

At one point,

,uld

move

i:

The

ne where there would be n