Dear Ben:

I hope he or she is a good therapist. She/he  should give you a short list  of objectives for the therapy and her plan about how to achieve those objectives, following a few sessions. She should  also give you a homework assignment in between sessions, such as listening  to a particular meditation, writing  something, reading something she  gives  you to read.

After the session you felt “better, and  with a clearer head”. Later, this recent hour, you felt “guilty… sort o f much more  lonely now. Unsettled. Is that a good thing?”-

having a clearer head  is  a very good thing, it can happen after therapy simply because  of hoping therapy will help, the same principle behind the placebo effect. Feeling better is also a good  thing. Feeling  guilty, lonely and  unsettled  is  not a good thing but we don’t have a choice but  to  feel these  unpleasant feelings. You will continue to feel  these things for a long, long time. Less  intensely at some point,  less frequently, but these feelings is ours, humans, for as long  as  we  are  alive.

Don’t be  alarmed by these feelings, keep functioning  well enough no matter  how you feel, build  that confidence in yourself to function well while  feeling badly. That very confidence … will feel good!

anita