Like most therapists, Julius found it difficult to seal himself off from the

unremitting attacks on the field of therapy. Assault came from many directions: from

pharmaceutical companies and managed care, which sponsored superficial research

orchestrated to validate the effectiveness of drugs and briefer therapies; from the media,

which never tired of ridiculing therapists; from behaviorists; from motivational speakers;

from the hordes of new age healers and cults all competing for the hearts and minds of

the troubled. And, of course, there were doubts from within: the extraordinary molecular

neurobiological discoveries reported with ever–increasing frequency caused even the

most experienced therapists to wonder about the relevance of their work.

Julius was not immune to these attacks and often entertained doubts about the

effectiveness of his therapy and just as often soothed and reassured himself.Of course he

was an effective healer.Of course he offered something valuable to most, perhaps even

all, of his patients.

Yet the imp of doubt continued to made its presence known:Were you really, truly,

helpful to your patients? Maybe you`ve just learned to pick patients who were going to

improve on their own anyway.

No. Wrong! Wasn`t I the one who always took on great challenges?

Huh, you`ve got your limits! When was the last time you really stretched yourself—

took a flagrant borderline into therapy? Or a seriously impaired schizophrenic or a

bipolar patient?

Continuing to thumb through old charts, Julius was surprised to see how much

posttherapy information he had—from occasional follow–up or «tune–up» visits, from

chance encounters with the patient, or from messages delivered by new patients they had

referred to him. But, still, had he made an enduring difference to them? Maybe his results