“Responsibility for another person’s health is both a privilege and a curse,” the author remarks, seeing and consulting 50 people every day. A therapist, like a detective, finds out what happened (what the problem is), then goes looking for evidence and clues (takes medical history and conducts examinations), focuses on the number of potential criminals (determines a possible cause of the symptoms), creates a list of suspects (performs differential diagnosis).
This book opens the door to the doctor’s office—during patient visits—and also when he is left alone with his own thoughts. You’ll be surprised, but a therapist’s day-to-day work can’t be called routine, because it’s a whole kaleidoscope of human stories—funny, frightening, absurd, sad, touching, and strange.