Note to Therapists

No one wants to be told what he already knows.  He instead wants to be shown the significance of it, its application to him today, in the situation in which he finds himself and with the dilemma that makes it hard to penetrate the cliché.  No one in crisis wants a lecture that was of little value (true though it may have been) when life was more manageable.  Neither does anyone want to hear what he already believed before it wore so thin.  Respond, then, to the need that is rather than with the answer that is available.