Though charmed by her ingenuous compliment, I was made uncomfortable by both thoughts: the mysterious “somehow,” and the vision of me as a miracle worker. As long as Marge thought in those terms, she would not get better because the source of help was either outside of herself or beyond comprehension. My task as a therapist (not unlike that of a parent) is to make myself obsolete—to help a patient become his or her own mother and father. I didn’t want to make her better. I wanted to help her take the responsibility of making herself better, and I wanted the process of improvement to be as
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