It's An Awful Risky Thing To Live

Both The Young And The Old Are Almost Completely Useless In Our Modern Society, And Are Made Keenly Aware Of That Uselessness. They Have No Place. They Are Private, Isolated - And Hopeless.

I Hear The Words, The Thoughts, The Feeling Tones, The Personal Meaning, Even The Meaning That Is Below The Conscious Intent Of The Speaker. Sometimes Too, In A Message Which Superficially Is Not Very Important, I Hear A Deep Human Cry That Lies Buried And Unknown Far Below The Surface Of The Person. So I Have Learned To Ask Myself, Can I Hear The Sounds And Sense The Shape Of This Other Person's Inner World? Can I Resonate To What He Is Saying So Deeply That I Sense The Meanings He Is Afraid Of, Yet Would Like To Communicate, As Well As Those He Knows?

If I Can Listen To What He Can Tell Me, If I Can Understand How It Seems To Him; If I Can See Its Personal Meaning For Him, If I Can Sense The Emotional Flavor Which It Has For Him, Then I Will Be Releasing Potent Forces Of Change In Him.

The Kind Of Caring That The Client-centered Therapist Desires To Achieve Is A Gullible Caring, In Which Clients Are Accepted As They Say They Are, Not With A Lurking Suspicion In The Therapist's Mind That They May, In Fact, Be Otherwise. This Attitude Is Not Stupidity On The Therapist's Part; It Is The Kind Of Attitude That Is Most Likely To Lead To Trust.

There Are As Many "real Worlds" As There Are People!