It has been further suggested that the absence of love is the major cause of mental illness and that the presence of love is consequently the essential healing element in psychotherapy. This being so, how is it that certain individuals, born and raised in an environment of nonlove, of unremitting neglect and casual brutality, somehow manage to transcend their childhood, sometimes even without the loving assistance of psychotherapy, and become mature, healthy and perhaps even saintly people? Conversely, how is it that some patients, apparently no more ill than others, fail partially or totally
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