03 3 / 2008
"We met weekly and, like engineers examining a weakening structure, began to analyze each point of stress and how I might deal with it. This was not easy since, in the course of living, working and rearing children, I had developed many ways of specifically not dealing with many things — especially those that involved determining who I was and what I thought without reference to my being son, father, husband, lover or friend. I was not breaking new psychoanalytic ground here, but if one of the characteristics of depression —as it has been said of insanity — is thinking the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results, then I was depressed. I found little pleasure in anything; I couldn’t sleep. Each day seemed to drag on forever, and yet I never seemed to have enough time to accomplish even the simplest tasks."
