Adult development and the transformative powers of psychotherapy

This article explores the ways in which receiving, providing, and teaching others to do psychotherapy have influenced my adult development. In my 70s, I arrived at the conviction that at every stage of adulthood, practicing psychotherapy has had a direct and causal influence on my efforts to fill my personal life with meaning, virtue, and maturity. The first section of this article focuses on the ways in which learning to be a particular kind of psychoanalytic therapist facilitated my transition into early adulthood. The middle sections describe how I have used the professional practice of psychotherapy to integrate or dissolve the boundaries between work and play, and science and art, in the everyday conduct of my life. My psychobiographical analysis concludes with some reflections on a professional failure and the compensations of being an aging therapist.