Dr. James Hollis

And typically it has to hurt enough inside to bring a person into therapy.

People don't just walk in and say, well, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I'd pop in and talk to a total stranger, pay him some money, and then, you know, walk out as a different person.

It doesn't work that way.

I've often said to people, this is not about curing you because you're not a disease.

This is about making your life more interesting, where you realize every morning you get up, you have something profound to address today.

Why am I here and in service to what?

Because if you don't ask that question, you're going to be in service to your adaptive postures from childhood, as many people prove to be, until the conflict within reaches that point where the suffering of the soul, psychopathology, is sufficient.

I myself was cruising along in my 30s.

I'd achieved everything that I wanted to achieve and was enjoying my life.

And then suddenly, inexplicably, had a very serious depression.

And it took me a while to realize that I was asking the wrong question.

The first question that occurs to a person under those circumstances is, how quickly do I get rid of this?

Give me five easy steps or a pill for that or whatever.

I didn't understand the real question is, why has your psyche autonomously withdrawn its approval and support from the agenda that you've been addressing?

It was a good agenda.

Nothing wrong with it, but there was something else that was missing in this process.

And it took a depression.

It's like something from below reached up and pulled me down.

Something was being pressed down.

That's depression.