I once asked a new patient, “Tell me what kind of man you are.”
He said, "Oh."
How would you answer it?
One of the ironies of most counseling and therapy nowadays is that it is constrained by the rules of Political Correctness. Political Correctness is a set of rules for speaking and thinking. No matter what you experience or think or feel, these rules tell you what the right attitudes are, the right words, the right thoughts. Anything that contradicts the rules is swiftly and harshly condemned. And so is the person who breaks them. Political Correctness infects the psychological world at all levels. This is ironic because when Sigmund Freud, the most famous of the founders of this new discipline, set out to investigate human psychology, he broke and contradicted some of the most powerful rules of his place and time. He talked openly and in detail about sex. In our culture we hear and speak about sex all the time. In his, it was a deeply taboo subject. Very much Politically In Correct. Part of the point of therapy is getting at the truth. And especially at truths that we...