For me, the term "psychotherapy" is limiting. It implies that we work with mind and emotions, but excludes the body and pays scant attention to the spirit, soul, and broader environmental issues.

Psychotherapy is a practice that many different professional disciplines engage. Psychiatrists are also medical doctors and increasingly offer medication and do less and less actual therapy.

My own work on depression demonstrated that men and women often have different symptoms, with males often becoming more irritable, angry, and aggressive when they are depressed, while women show the more inward symptoms such as sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness.

Parents and therapists offer unconditional love without needing it to be returned, yet both sides grow in love, understanding, and acceptance.

I've been a therapist for more than forty years and certainly there is a place for "wise elders" in the healing process. But most people, most of the time, can heal themselves and those they love, with the help of their family, friends, and community.

It was long assumed that heart disease manifested the same in men and women. But Dr. Legato found that men may experience the classic symptoms of chest pain that radiates down the left arm. Women often have symptoms including shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, and back or jaw pain. A gender-neutral approach left many women under-diagnosed and under-treated and as a result many women died needlessly.

Effective psychotherapy works because the therapist continues to grow as a person and as a healer.