“Have you ever had an infected tooth pulled?” I asked. “Sure.” “Did you have a nice ride home?” I asked. (Laughing) “No, it was awful.” “Well, that was negative, . . . or was it?” I asked. “If you define negative as feeling crummy, I agree it was. But if you define negative as ‘harmful,’ I would not call it negative but positive. It was not harmful at all for the dentist to inflict that pain. In fact, it was a very positive event, right? A healing event?” I asked. “Yes, sure it was,” she said. “There is a big difference between hurt and harm,” I said. “We all hurt sometimes in facing hard
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