In the popular HBO show In Treatment, Paul, a psychoanalyst and show's protagonist, confronts his clinical supervisor, Gina, and asserts his decision to begin a romantic relationship with his patient and to shut down his practice, choosing instead to become a life coach who offers guidance. In arguing for his choice, he notes that Laura, the patient, needs good advice, which psychotherapy can't offer. Gina, challenging Paul, retorts, "She's coming to you because she can't take advice." To Gina, the problem isn't that Laura needs better guidance, or in this case, a guru; she needs help removing the barriers she erected to the guidance already afforded her.

Resentment toward the significant others in our lives engenders walls that prevent us from asking them for help. Some clients are labelled by others as stubborn or arrogant because they don't solicit, nor take seriously, others' perspectives; they, simply, don't value them. Therapy, then, becomes a first step in the process of learning to trust, and even enlist, other people. Many clients were reared in environments with authoritarian (the "my way or the highway" mindset) and/or dismissive parents. They learned early on that they could only rely on themselves, believing that others would and could never have their best interests in mind. Some develop a high degree of paranoia, chronically wondering what others are after or whether they're trying to sabotage them. When we ask them about their inability to........

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