“He won’t change, will he?” she says. “He may not want to change,” I say gently. “And your father might not either.” Charlotte squeezes her lips together, as if considering a possibility that had never occurred to her before. After all of her efforts to try to get these men to love her the way she wants to be loved, she can’t change them because they don’t want to change. This is a familiar scenario in therapy. A patient’s boyfriend doesn’t want to stop smoking pot and watching video games on weekends. A patient’s child doesn’t want to study harder for tests at the expense of doing musical
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