Voicelessness and Emotional Survival--Psychotherapy and Humanism pg. 3

because he wants to go out, is 11 years old and nearing the end of his life.

All of these experiences, together with years of working with clients, taught me as much about psychotherapy as my technical training.

So, if you asked me now what psychotherapy is all about, I would say it involves finding the vulnerable self common to all of us, nurturing it, allowing it to grow free of shame and guilt, providing comfort, security, and an attachment. Of course there is technique, but the best of it is mixed with and indistinguishable from humanness: listen more than you talk; make sure you fully understand everything you hear, wonder about it in the context of a unique personal history. This is the very backbone of psychotherapy. Seminars on the technical aspects of psychotherapy are stimulating and intellectually satisfying. But it is the outcome that truly matters. If your therapist does therapy well, and you awaken at 3:00 in the morning, you feel he or she is with you.