The Heroic Client
A Revolutionary Way to Improve Effectiveness Through Client-Directed, Outcome-Informed Therapy
Chapter One
Therapy at the Crossroads
The Challenges of the Twenty-First
Century
... every man his greatest, and, as it were, his own
executioner.
-Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici
One day, the ancient fable by Aesop goes, the mighty
oaks were complaining to the god Jupiter. "What good is it," they asked
him bitterly, "to have come to this Earth, struggled to survive through
harsh winters and strong fall winds, only to end up under the woodcutter's
axe?" Jupiter would hear nothing of their complaints, however,
and scolded them sternly. "Are you not responsible for your own
misfortunes, as you yourselves provide the handles for those axes?"
The sixth-century C.E. storyteller ends the tale with a moral: "It is the
same for men: they absurdly reproach the gods for the misfortunes
that they owe to no one but themselves" (Duriez, 1999, p. 1).
Though removed by some 2,600 years, the perilous situation of the
oaks described in Aesop's fable is not unlike that of the field of therapy
today ... read full excerpt from The Heroic Client ebook
