A psychologist’s job…

I’ve found that healing occurs best when self-evaluation and personal growth are coupled with humor and self-acceptance. A good therapist will not only help you to discover what needs to change, but will teach you how to view your current foibles with perspective, understanding, and (when appropriate) even wry amusement. Granted, the business of therapy may at times be of critical, sometimes life and death, importance. (This is what “serious” refers to in the aphorism.) But unless you have done something particularly egregious, if you change your unwanted behavior solely out of necessity—or through the impetus that comes from self-loathing or shame—you will forever view that change and your past behavior with nothing but sadness, regret, and self-recrimination. That is, however, until you are able, in some small way, to laugh at who you once were.