I am a clinical counselor, specializing in trauma and addiction. I have 25 years of experience working with clients struggling with depression, anxiety, relationship problems, verbal/emotional/physical/sexual abuse, and psychotic disorders. My approach mirrors that of Thomas Szasz, MD, as he wrote in The Healing Word: Its Past, Present, and Future: “Mental illness and psychotherapy are fictions. Neither exists. Only the patient, the therapist, and a particular relationship between them exist. Both participants are responsible moral agents. Each is existentially equal to the other, each influences the other, and each is responsible for his or her behavior. The therapist can neither cure the patient not make him or her sick. However, the patient can do both of these things — for or to himself or herself– by making use of the therapist’s helping or harming words (Bohart & Talman, 1996).” … The expert’s role is to engage the clients in a process of searching self-examination, with the aim of enabling them, if they so choose, to become more free and more responsible.