That was an extreme case. We get so used to thinking of people in terms of their problems, and the causes of them, that there is a danger that we continue to think in the same way outside the consulting room. I know I have been guilty of this. There are, I think, two. One is simply to be conscious of it.
Therapists are human, and fallibly human.
Let us remember that we are not better than others, that our knowledge is very imperfect and that we are constantly subject to the very human danger of projecting onto others our own imperfections. That, it seems to me, is the moral of this little case. The young woman left, very relieved in her mind that she was not drastically disturbed, as she had been informed, but had simply reacted as any normal woman would. Reprinted from The Journal of the National Council for Psychotherapists and Hypnotherapy Register, Autumn 93.