“Given the considerable number of children who come to therapy begrudgingly, you might expect me to rejoice for those who come with bells on their toes. And sometimes I do. Experience has tempered my exuberance, however, since the speediest in are often also the speediest out. James, who had spent his second hour raving about his first, never came to the third or fourth. When a child too readily pleads for treatment every day or “forever,” I watch for signs of a premature desertion. The precipitant for quitting may be, not an underlying dislike of therapy, but the intolerable frustration over having so little of it.”

“The most insidious of the premature responsibilities that may be foisted onto some children is the expectation that the child is somehow supposed to take care of his parents, rather than the other way around. Parents who were themselves raised with too little attention given to their own early feelings, if they have not worked out the resulting emotional problems in subsequent years, often look forward to having children of their own so that the children will make them happy. (81)”

“I thought part of the idea of having therapy was putting one in touch with his or her feelings. And don’t give me all that about transference, and counter-transference and all that. I know what I feel. And it has nothing to do with all that. And you also feel for me. And if you don’t know that, then maybe it’s you who needs to have therapy to gain a better knowledge of yourself.”

“Rejoice with those who rejoice." I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep.”

“Our relationship finally ended when he took to waking me up in the wee hours of the morning when he would go surfing. He thought it might be fun to have me come watch. "Fun for who?" I wanted to ask. I had never asked him to come to Happy Hour and watch me drink.”

“I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.”