Psychotherapy: All the Dirty Little Secrets Your Therapist Doesn't Want You to Know!

“I think that successful therapy follows a pattern like a movie script (Whadidja expect? I was born in Hollywood!) and has three parts, acts or ‘phases’.
In a movie, the first act – the ‘set up’ – starts with the main character going along minding his own business when something terrible happens that knocks him out of his comfort zone and throws him into a strange world where he doesn’t know the rules or what’s going on. In the first half of the second act – the development – the character ‘runs for his life’ because he’s ‘just trying to survive’ and as he runs he learns more and more about the villain that is attacking him.” [the villain, in this case, may be any adversity --- person, situation, condition, event or thing]
“At the mid-point, ‘the worm turns’ and the main character ‘gets mad’ and decides to fight back ‘even if it kills me’. In the second half of the development, the character becomes stronger (and wiser) as he begins to battle the bad guy. In the last act – the dénouement and conclusion – the main character has a tremendous battle against the forces of evil, wins the battle and returns to his former life. But the experience has changed him; he can no longer be the guy he was before.
Successful therapy is kinda like that. Except that it usually doesn’t have all that drama.”