What's perhaps most interesting to me is that sometimes my reactions to what my T says and does help me learn about how I react to other people, and how other people react to me. There have been some remarkable similarities to things T has said to me and things my wife and/or kids have said.

I think therapy "works" whenever the client moves towards greater self understanding or positive growth or improved relationships with others (I'm sure there are other therapy goals, but these are mine, I'm not trying to define therapy for all). Therapy can work when a client leaves a relationship that is not right for him or her, whether because there is not a good fit with the therapist or because the therapist engages with the client in a destructive way. Or maybe after a rupture the client decides that rather than blame herself and stick around months and months flogging herself for the failures of the relationship, she'll move forward in a new way. I don't think it's so much "what" the work is but how it goes.

Most of my early adult life, I had trouble sticking around and making all kinds of relationships work, because I didn't understand my impact on other people and wasn't willing to move past a negative experience in a relationship, or I just didn't know how. As a middle aged adult, I'm better at sticking around but I've sort of oscillated the other way where I have more difficulty letting go of relationships that are not healthy for me. My T relationship of 8 years is not one of these and while the fact that it "works" is partly due to how I have changed and grown, I can't "work" in isolation.

Sometimes I feel that in attempting to encourage others to harness their own power and see relationships as turning out positive, it feels to them like finding fault for difficulties with others. It has been helpful to me to make greater attempts at communicating clearly and without judging. This is especially true as my teenage children navigate the bizarre waters of social life via e-communications and social media. But just as I have suggested to my kids that certain kinds of behavior from others are not acceptable, one's own reactions to that unacceptable behavior can either make things better or worse. And sometimes nothing we do changes how people respond, as there are times and people who say and do things that have nothing to do with us. But learning the difference between how we impact others and how others respond in ways that have nothing to do with us, and all that space in between? That's a life time of work, and constantly upgrading as time goes on.