The young therapist-in-training seemed at a loss when I asked why her supervisor seemingly gave her no advice about a patient who reported no progress week after week on two of the three goals he came into therapy seeking help with.    

“But you speak so well, and seem to know exactly what you need to do, and talk very precisely about it, I…..” and her voice trailed off as I looked on, alert, eyebrows sympathetically raised, listening actively with body language showing her I was not shutting her out.  

“Ah,” I said, philosophical as always, “that’s the devilish subtlety of it.  I can always see another side and even as I feel bad that I cannot, for example, motivate myself to do an amazing thing that perhaps only one in a million people would even dream of doing, I can also reassure myself that it’s cruel to chide myself for not being able to do what perhaps one in a million would attempt to do, on their own.”

I watched the wheels turning in the young therapist’s mind.  She was forced to agree.  

“You’re a tough nut,” a friend concluded with a tiny chuckle when I told him about the unhelpful dance I do with this psychology student for about 40 minutes every week.  His long-ago CBT therapist had eventually found a way to get him to have a good cry.  That cry made him feel pain he was then able to release himself from, in an important way.  I don’t want to feel that kind of pain, of course.  

“Part of what makes you such a tough nut,” said my friend, clapping me on the shoulder and moving our glasses to the sink.

“Makes her the perfect therapist for me, I suppose, she’s not going to make me cry.  Something to be said for that.”  

“Yep,” said my friend, running some foamy water into our glasses.