I rarely hear my therapist colleagues complain that their lives lack meaning. Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other. We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life. There is extraordinary privilege here. And extraordinary satisfaction, too. In the preceding discussion of professional hazards I described the arduous, never-ending self-scrutiny and inner work required by our profession. But that very requirement is more privilege than burden because it is an inbuilt safeguard against stagnation. The active therapist is always evolving, continuously growing in self-knowledge and awareness. How can one possibly guide others in an examination of the deep structures of mind and existence without simultaneously examining oneself? Nor is it possible to ask a patient to focus upon interpersonal relatedness without examining one’s own modes of relating. I receive plenty of feedback from patients (that I am, for example, withholding, rejecting, judgmental, cold and aloof), which I must take seriously. I ask myself whether it fits my internal experience and whether others have given me similar feedback. If I conclude that the feedback is accurate and illuminates my blind spots, I feel grateful and thank my patients. Not to do so, or to deny the veracity of an accurate observation, is to undermine the patient’s view of reality and to engage not in therapy but in anti-therapy. We are cradlers of secrets. Every day patients grace us with their secrets, often never before shared. Receiving such secrets is a privilege given to very few. The secrets provide a backstage view of the human condition without social frills, role playing, bravado, or stage posturing. Sometimes the secrets scorch me and I go home and hold my wife and count my blessings. Other secrets pulsate within me and arouse my own fugitive, long-forgotten memories and impulses. Still others sadden me as I witness how an entire life can be needlessly consumed by shame and the inability to forgive oneself. Those who are cradlers of secrets are granted a clarifying lens through which to view the world—a view with less distortion, denial, and illusion, a view of the way things really are. (Consider, in this regard, the titles of books written by Allen Wheelis, an eminent psychoanalyst: The Way Things Are, The Scheme of Things, The Illusionless Man.)When I turn to others with the knowledge that we are all (therapist and patient alike) burdened with painful secrets—guilt for acts committed, shame for actions not taken, yearnings to be loved and cherished, deep vulnerabilities, insecurities, and fears—I draw closer to them. Being a cradler of secrets has, as the years have passed, made me gentler and more accepting. When I encounter individuals inflated with vanity or self-importance, or distracted by any of a myriad of consuming passions, I intuit the pain of their underlying secrets and feel not judgment but compassion and, above all, connectedness. When I was first exposed, at a Buddhist retreat, to the formal meditation of loving-kindness, I felt myself much at home. I believe that many therapists, more than is generally thought, are familiar with the realm of loving-kindness. Not only does our work provide us the opportunity to transcend ourselves, to evolve and to grow, and to be blessed by a clarity of vision into the true and tragic knowledge of the human condition, but we are offered even more. We are intellectually challenged. We become explorers immersed in the grandest and most complex of pursuits—the development and maintenance of the human mind. Hand in hand with patients, we savor the pleasure of great discoveries—the “aha” experience when disparate ideational fragments suddenly slide smoothly together into coherence. At other times we are midwife to the birth of something new, liberating, and elevating. We watch our patients let go of old self-defeating patterns, detach from ancient grievances, develop zest for living, learn to love us, and, through that act, turn lovingly to others. It is a joy to see others open the taps to their own founts of wisdom. Sometimes I feel like a guide escorting patients through the rooms of their own house. What a treat it is to watch them open doors to rooms never before entered, discover new wings of their house containing parts in exile—wise, beautiful, and creative pieces of identity. Sometimes the first step of that process is in dream work, when both the patient and I marvel at the emergence from darkness of ingenious constructions and luminous images. I imagine creative writing teachers must have similar experiences. Last, it has always struck me as an extraordinary privilege to belong to the venerable and honorable guild of healers. We therapists are part of a tradition reaching back not only to our immediate psychotherapy ancestors, beginning with Freud and Jung and all their ancestors—Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard—but also to Jesus, the Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Galen, Hippocrates, and all the other great religious leaders, philosophers, and physicians who have, since the beginning of time, ministered to human despair.

Yalom, Irvin. The Gift of Therapy . Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition. Yalom, Irvin. The Gift of Therapy . Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition. Yalom, Irvin. The Gift of Therapy . Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition. Yalom, Irvin. The Gift of Therapy . Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition. ​