Some people think that going to a therapist is like going to a car mechanic: they expect the therapist to diagnose a specific problem and fix it just as the mechanic puts in new brake pads or readjusts the carburetor. These clients expect something to happen to them. That is not the case. Don’t expect the other person to have all the answers. Therapists don’t come with crystal balls. You have the answers. They are already within you. The psychotherapist helps you discover those answers as you examine your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. I think of therapy as education. In therapy you may learn new skills to help you communicate better, decrease difficulties in your life and increase benefits.

We live in a world that is obsessed with resolving conflict through domination and conquering, and that includes the domination of human nature and nature itself. Psychotherapists know that when we take away the imagination it becomes easier to address complex problems with propaganda and simplistic solutions.

The implications for the aging woman are both exciting and frightening. She becomes wiser if she’s lucky enough to have kept her health and wits about her, and yet she—more than likely—will find herself in a Catch-22 situation. On the one hand, she has gone through so many learning experiences that she is able to look at life with a certain amount of educated subjectivity, and, on the other hand she is no longer seeing the same image in the mirror.

So here we are once again. You can see the big Thanksgiving Turkeys in the freezers at the supermarket, the holiday decorations in store windows, and the daily chants counting down the days to Christmas