Extracts from the Cards:

• ' People typically end up in therapy when they are overwhelmed by painful symptoms whose causes they can't understand. Why are they always so sad? Why, having done nothing objectively wrong, are they so fearful of being sacked? Why isn't sex possible anymore? '

• ' In therapy, 'sublimation' is extended to cover the way in which a usually unhelpful impulse can be converted into a noble ambition. For example, aggressive instincts to kick or hit can be channelled into sporting prowess; the desire to show off can become the basis of a capacity to address an audience on something of real worth; a feeling that no one listens can give birth to a literary career.'

• ' Therapy cannot make us happy every day, but its benefits are tangible nevertheless. After a course of therapy, we will stand to feel substantially freer. We will realise that what we had believed to be our inherent personality was really just a position we had crouched into to deal with the prevailing atmosphere. Having taken a measure of the true present situation, we may accept that there could be other, sufficiently safe, ways for us to be.'