As therapists our job is to see our clients, even at those times when we would rather look away. It is though our mutual fierce vision that clients discover choice and meaning.

Both my parents are therapists, which means that I am really goddamned well adjusted.

You cannot do any more for me," I said. "Since I have begun to depend on you I feel weaker than ever before. I have disappointed you by acting neurotically at the very moment when I should have shown the wisdom of your guidance. I don't want to ever come back to you. I feel that I must go and work and live and forget about all this.

I do not mean to mock or ridicule your life's work, for in one way at least it mimics my own: We have dedicated our lives to the pursuit of phantoms. The difference is the nature of those phantoms. Mine exist between other men's ears; yours live solely between your own.

In a flash, I remember why I don't care for therapists and why I didn't want to do this in the first place. They judge. Even if they don't mean to, they do. They think they know best and, sorse yet, they can convince you it's true.

Some therapists have proclaimed: 'Co-dependency is anything, and everyone is co-dependent.'