Finding Meaning

What goes on in a therapist’s office is a mystery to many who have never pursued psychotherapy. First-timers are often nervous and uncertain, not knowing what to expect. A common misconception is that therapy is some sort of cathartic, secular confessional, or that the therapist will magically “fix” the client—cure depression, anxiety, grief, social isolation, relationship and career difficulties. Instead, a therapy session is more like a compassionate conversation. Regardles

By Elizabeth O’Brien, M.A., LPC I waited 20 years to get a dog again. After growing up with dogs in my home town of Memphis, taking on such a commitment after I left home was too much for my chaotic, itinerant life: college in Knoxville, TN, first jobs in Miami, all-consuming career and cramped apartments in New York City. I knew, from my mother’s example, what having a dog entailed. So I waited. Finally, in 1995, when my family was comfortably ensconced in Austin and my youn

Buffett Leigh O'Brien Dogs of Our Dreams I have always loved dogs. In almost every snapshot of me as a child, I am clutching a squirming puppy in my chubby arms or trailing after one of my black, flop-eared Cocker Spaniels. Teddy and Tim, father and son, were the definitive dogs of my early life. They accompanied me everywhere I ventured in my midtown Memphis neighborhood—to friends’ backyards, to the patch of woods behind David Brown’s house, to the playground attached to ou