Therapy is a temporary crutch or a cast in which to heal, a comfort, a source for renewed faith in yourself, and an experience of learning. It cannot solve all the problems of future living, for these pose new challenges that require of us all that we readjust our goals and expectations, become more resilient and less easily troubled or broken. (The flexible bamboo is more likely to survive a storm than the mighty oak.) Reducing an individual's rigidity is an objective of all psychotherapies. Becoming less rigid allows you to accommodate to changes and to tolerate external stress more easily. Decreased rigidity helps you adjust to new demands placed on you by your surroundings. {285} But there is another side to living successfully, and that is, first, the ability to recognize situations and circumstances that cause you excessive stress and, second, the willingness to leave them before it is too late. We tend to place _all_ of the responsibility for adjustment to stress on ourselves, on our inner strengths. But often this is unnecessary, unreasonable, and even self-destructive. Often it is the _situation_ that is not desirable or tolerable, not a "weakness" in ourselves in being unable to cope with it. It can sometimes take more strength and courage to break free from a pattern of frustration and unhappiness than to remain on, slowly wearing down your resources and growing older fast. Much of successful living after therapy is a matter of _prevention_: of being aware when you begin to tax yourself more than you need to, when your body and mind begin to tell you that you are developing new habits of anxiety or depression or are starting to reinforce old ones. At these times, take stock of what you are doing, of how your daily living may be in conflict with your values and attitudes. Prevention here means being willing to change an undesirable situation, not just enduring it while trying to change its consequences _in you_. This is largely a matter of knowing and respecting yourself, of _not_ requiring yourself to accept conditions that you feel will lead you to grief. Therapy may help you tolerate stress more easily, but this is one-sided if you do not also learn to protect yourself from stress that is excessive. (Even bamboos can be broken.) Therapy is an opportunity for you to learn how to cope better with the problems of living. You learn that you can face the demands of life successfully in these ways: * through belief in yourself and through strength of will * by diminishing your preoccupation with yourself and developing interests outside yourself * by understanding your reactions and accepting them rather than fighting yourself * by living in the present * by taking yourself less seriously, by developing a sense of humor and perspective Having learned these things, you then simply do the best you can within the limitations of life. {287} PART IV APPENDIXES {289}