The therapist can interpret, advise, provide the emotional acceptance and support that nurtures personal growth, and above all, he can listen. I do not mean that he can simply hear the other, but that he will listen actively and purposefully, responding with the instrument of his trade, that is, with the personal vulnerability of his own trembling self. This listening is that which will facilitate the patient's telling of his tale, the telling that can set him free. (5)

For each of us, the only hope resides in his own efforts, in completing his own story, not in the other's interpretation. (63)

Often things are as bad as they seem.

Each person's only hope for improving his lot rests on recognizing the true nature of his or her basic personality, surrendering to it, and becoming who he or she really is.

To live without the creative potential of our own destructiveness is to be a cardboard angel.

But after a while, she began to experience the new reality of each person as being as strong and as weak as anyone else. Slowly, she learned that each of us grown-ups has as much and as little power as the other, and that we had best learn to take care of ourselves.(83)

Again and again I find that my own inner counselor, my secret dreaming self, is not only wise and helpful but usually amusing as well.