"Practicing Psychotherapy"

What do I understand by the words “practicing psychotherapy”? I help people who are dissatisfied with their lives try to make them more satisfying. I work with people who wish to become more aligned with who they could be, but have not yet become. I work with people who feel that something greater lies dormant within them than what they are able to embody in life. I work with people who wish to truly be close with other people and who try to overcome the barriers that place us in an invisible cage. … This occupation contains a great many contradictions within it. It involves two people who act and react to each other emotionally and genuinely. It can very powerfully affect the lives of some people, prove useless for others, and — if we are completely honest — for some it can cause harm. But beyond the impact that psychotherapy has on the lives of the therapist and their client, it does something else that places it in a special position within our culture: psychotherapy provides a place and time to systematically observe and comprehend the fact of what it truly means — to be human.

James Bugental, 1975