The Point of Psychotherapy (part 2)
This question is instructive: what has changed here - the car or the man? The car is still the same basic machine it was the day the man drove it off the lot. Aside from a flat tire and a bit of wear and tear, the car hasn"t changed much. The man"s perceptions and feelings about the car, however, have shifted radically. The problem is that the man viewed the car as a source of happiness and prestige, almost as if "happiness and prestige" inherently existed IN the car itself (like happiness was actually mixed into its metal and rubber). But the car is just a piece of machinery and has no inherent quality of "happiness" or "prestige" within it. Yet somehow (very subtly but very profoundly) the man believed (long before he bought it) that the car possessed these qualities; thus if he could own the car, then these qualities would become his qualities. Of course this unrealistic expectation could not be upheld for very long and, when reality came cra