I’m going to use the example of a new patient, Cheryl (not her real name), who came to see me this week. I always start my meeting with any new patient with the question: “What are you doing here? What do you want?

A while back, some of you asked for a book referral list, and I subsequently began the project of putting one together. As I mentioned at that time, I rarely utilize bibliotherapy in my private practice. For complex reasons having to do (in large part) with fostering unconscious processes and communication in psychoanalysis and analytically informed psychotherapy, referring patients to self-help books is generally not complementary.

Wait — it gets better.

My company, GreenBeanie™, has a motto that is “put on your thinking cap.