On the other hand, you may not feel that mapping out your problem or goals in the way that Chapter 7 suggests is for you. Perhaps you are simply curious about the field and would like to learn more about it, or perhaps you are considering counseling or psychotherapy as an opportunity for personal growth and do not have particular difficulties or issues that you want to focus on. For you, it may be more relevant to read about a wide range of approaches and by so doing gain a clearer understanding of what the alternatives are, how they work, and what they may offer you. This "window-shopping" can then form the basis for a more informed decision later on if you want to enter counseling or psychotherapy. THE EXPERIENCES OF CLIENTS IN THERAPY The reports in this book that describe the personal lives and experience of real individuals in therapy have all been deliberately recast to mask all traces of their identities. Their names, life situations, ages, and other characteristics have been changed. Descriptions of the experiences of clients in therapy have been greatly abbreviated and sometimes simplified. As we have already seen, counseling and psychotherapy last varying lengths of time. Even a very short period of therapy, over a period of weeks, will bring to light much more detail than it would be useful for us to discuss here. The personal lives of the real persons that are portrayed here are immeasurably more complex and multifaceted than short reports can bring out. Sometimes we will use a time-lapse strategy, describing the evolution of a person's therapy over a period of many months by skipping over weeks at a time. Always the intent will be to try to convey to you how real people with real problems have come to deal with their difficulties more effectively and often, in the process, have been able to reach a richer understanding of themselves and of others. {113} 9 PSYCHOANALYSIS _For wide-range improvements in individuals who are not severely impaired and who are articulate, reflective, patient, self-disciplined, and able to make a potentially long-term commitment to therapy._ The past hides but is present.... Bernard Malamud, _A New Life_ Psychoanalysis is the root from which the large family of different theories of psychotherapy and counseling has grown. Sigmund Freud's first efforts to develop psychoanalysis began in the 1880s. He lived a long life and was active into his eighties; he died in 1939. Freud left behind one of the most important contributions to the field of mental and emotional health. It formed the historical basis for the diversity of approaches that would follow. Even when later thinkers took issue with Freud, their work in different ways relied on the foundation of his pioneering work.