Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

by Lori Gottlieb

Above all, I didn’t want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion—an apt phrase, given John’s worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.

This is exactly what happens to me after the breakup. My friends offer “idiot compassion”—“You dodged a bullet!” “He’s dead to me!” But Wendell offers “wise compassion” by holding up a mirror to me and asking me to look at my own role in the situation. Idiot compassion feels so soothing in the short-term, but in therapy, we want to give people something far more valuable than a Band Aid. We want to give them a sense of awareness that will serve them well in the long term.