Now I was down to the hardest nut to crack, the tightest bond to break. Quitting individual therapy took years. I took steps forward, suffered relapses, fell back. I'm not sure I would have had the ego strength to stop if not for some life-changing events. First: I got out of the bad relationship, promised myself I'd never be part of another couple that required therapy to prop it up, and -- miracle of miracles! -- got into a good one. My son grew out of his adolescent maelstrom -- saved not by the succession of counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists who seemed to have done him and our family more harm than good, but by Jesus, whose hourly rate is far more reasonable and whose guidance Jesse found far more empowering.

Then I hit my personal therapy bottom. It happened to me where it happens to many junkies: in jail. I was in Los Angeles, writing a story for Mademoiselle magazine about what makes men rape. I'd been interviewing a convicted rapist who was about to be released from prison; now I was interviewing his court-appointed psychiatrist. Why, I asked him, was this obviously un-rehabilitated predator being set free? What made the psychiatrist think the rapist -- who'd been bragging to me about how attractive his victims found him -- wouldn't rape again? The psychiatrist told me confidently, as if he were actually making sense, "Because he's in therapy."

Where had I heard that argument before? Ah, yes. I'd used it to persuade myself -- and a few friends -- to stay in much too hard relationships with much too incompatible people. I'd used it to persuade basketball coaches and principals not to expel my son. I'd used it to convince my parents that I was working on my relationships with them when I was, in truth, doing no such thing. Could therapy be society's crutch, not just my own -- a non-status-quo-threatening "treatment" for social, cultural and political, as well as personal, ills?

After all, these days therapy is the simple answer to far too many complicated questions. Your marriage sucks? Don't ask why half of American marriages end in divorce -- go to therapy. Your teenager's flunking out, blasting hate rock through his headphones, doing drugs? Don't ask why we're spending more money on juvenile halls than schools, or (perish the thought) become an activist and do something about it -- send him, yourself, the whole family to therapy. No need to punish thieving CEOs, unrepentant rapists, racist cops; no need to wonder how we might change our priorities so America starts producing more healthy citizens and fewer creeps and crooks -- not when we can send 'em all to therapy. Why bother protesting the inequities and injustices that are causing marriages, families -- the whole damn social contract -- to unravel, when we've got therapy to make us feel better about that unraveling?

Once I'd started to see therapy as part of the problem, not part of the solution, I could no longer delude myself that even a little therapy was OK. I broke the news to Miranda, refused her request for a few "termination sessions," and -- lump in throat, checkbook in hand -- I ended our relationship, cold turkey. As most junkies do, I quickly substituted one fixation for another, obsessing endlessly about what had caused me, a deeply neurotic but somewhat rational (not to mention exceedingly frugal) person, to have spent the price of a house (a Midwestern house, but a house nonetheless) in the past 17 years on an intangible, self-perpetuating indulgence whose benefits I could scarcely discern or measure, that didn't come with a 30-day warrantee, let alone a money-back guarantee, that had somehow insinuated itself like a tapeworm into every twist and curl of my being.

True, there had been times -- precious times, magical times -- when "the work" with Miranda felt not only soothing but transformative; when her "mirroring" helped me to see myself, other people, life less painfully, less self-disparagingly. Miranda was there for me (at $75 a pop) through one breast lump, one out-of-my-control teenager, one awful breakup, several career shifts, and too many small to medium-size crises to count. But the best thing about my relationship with Miranda -- knowing I could count on her for a fix of one-way attention whenever I needed it -- was also the worst. The more addicted I'd become to opening up in the safe womb of Miranda's office, the less reason I'd had to open up to friends and other unpaid support staff outside it. For the better part of a decade I'd spent less time grocery shopping, seeing friends, making love, working out, or even watching television than I'd spent in therapy. How had I let that happen? No more, I vowed. I will never be shrunk again.

I found it a lonely calling, being an anti-therapy crusader. My friends -- those who could afford it, despite the shrinking economy and decimated insurance plans -- were still seeing their shrinks and/or couples counselors. "It's just a phase," I knew my friends and family were thinking. "She'll be back. God knows she needs it." In my weaker moments, I myself wondered how long I could hold out.

I won't lie: there are times when I still want to take a shrink. More than once I've caught myself lifting the phone to my lips, Miranda's phone number running through my mind. It doesn't surprise me that the siren call of succor for hire still tempts me. I quit smoking 25 years ago and I still crave cigarettes; I still suppress longings for terrible ex-lovers, Kit-Kat bars, Zoloft and more than my ration of two "Law and Order" reruns a night. But I'm always glad I resist. The rerun episodes always turn out the same way they turned out the first time. I suspect another go-round with Miranda would, too. I'd sink into that cozy couch, buy myself a few more 50-minute shots, go back to depending on Miranda instead of building real relationships with real people, and hate -- or at least, seriously doubt -- myself in the morning. So I've been working on finding other ways of healing (and learning to live with) my suffering instead.

What might these wholer-than-thou healing methods be? Nothing special, really. When the angst kicks in, I recite my own serenity prayer: God (or whoever's active-listening), grant me the serenity to accept the neuroses I cannot change, the courage to change the neuroses I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Then, I "say more about that" to a friend. Get "mirrored" at my favorite discount boutique. Drift through a bookstore. Hike a sweaty hill. Write a story for Salon. Daydream about Miranda reading my story in Salon, confronting her fear of intimacy, overcoming her countertransference issues, and asking me out for drinks. (Return to serenity prayer.)

Don't get me wrong: I still think therapy has its place. It can be part of the solution -- lifesaving, even -- for people with mental illness, people in true life crises, people who are court-ordered or girlfriend-ordered into self-examination. I'm no better a person for being out of therapy than I was for being in it. Quitting didn't make me any kinder, saner, more productive or happier -- life circumstances did that. But quitting did stem the flow of my indisposable income, time and self-sufficiency.

The choice, as I see it, is not between doing therapy and getting better versus not doing therapy and staying screwed up. The choice for me -- and I keep making it, one day at a time -- is whether to be screwed up and broke and dependent on someone I pay to care about me, or screwed up and less broke and more self-sufficient. People who choose to stay in therapy have harder decisions to make: who to see, how to know if it's working, when to move on.

There's lots more to say. I'd love to continue. But I'm sorry. Our time is up.

Recent Stories