Therapists learn by a number of means. That is, they learn about people and about doing psychotherapy from a number of resources. One is obviously from books and formal classes on psychology and how to do assessments and therapy. Another is from supervisors who meet with them to discuss their ongoing work with clients. The third main way therapists learn about people and how to do psychotherapy is from the people themselves ? their clients directly.

Over the years I have been impressed by many of the folks who have come to me for help. They have, without probably knowing it, become my teachers. Not one of them, however, became a teacher by pontificating, lecturing, or assuming some kind of authoritative role with me. Neither did they become very memorable by adoring me as some kind of miracle worker and getting me to pontificate with them. God knows I don't need much encouragement to do that as it is!

No, I can never really know ahead of time why one person will catch my attention and become one of my teachers. However, I have begun to recognise when it's happening. So it is that one day a very intelligent young woman came to me, supported by her mother, and she pulled out of my mouth the question, "Is it maturity, or is it intelligence?" I have been pondering that question ever since. She has become my teacher, and thus, one of those who will likely climb into my suitcase wherever I travel. She will come with me, for instance, this August, when I present at an international conference of therapists, and she might leap out in the middle of some presentation to make her presence known with that wonderful puzzle, "Is it maturity, or is it intelligence?" At that point she may well become an anonymous teacher, pulling not one therapist, but a whole room full of them, to ponder the same thing.

Who else has become my teacher?

Once, during a time when I was staying up late and getting up early, I found myself nodding off while a particular client was talking to me. When I blinked back in, the client was sitting there. He had stopped talking, and he was looking at me. I felt embarrassed and stupid. I said, "Did I just nod off?" And the client said, "No." No?! The correct answer was, "Yes." Instantly that man became my teacher because of the puzzle he presented, and I have never been able to forget him.

Once, a tall, strong 16-year-old boy came to me because he had "anger problems." He told a story of often getting so upset that it felt to him that his blood was boiling, and then he would start to tremble, and then he would black out. When he would come to, he would usually see someone lying at his feet, some poor soul he had just beaten to a pulp. So, I asked him how he was feeling while telling me that story, and he said that he was starting to feel like his blood was boiling. I noticed he was trembling. That boy took me to a place inside myself I did not want to go ? a scared and vulnerable place, but it taught me something about being with a dangerous or unpredictable situation. I invited him to go for a walk with me around the block, and he calmed down.

People teach me many things, not just about how to do therapy, but since therapy, when you really get down to it, is about how two people come together in a room, therapy requires that a therapist be a person with a varied and full well from which to draw. I can connect with some people because they take pictures and I have dabbled in photography, with others because I have camped outside, been in the Boy Scouts, raised farm animals, lived in the woods, suffered through divorce, endured the death of a brother, found myself homeless, been a single parent, travelled internationally, toured with a rock band, been in the military, or had my skull fractured in a riot.

So, here's to all my teachers. Thanks for what you entrust to me. Thanks for making my life so much more than it would have been had I never met you, had you never been in such pain that you decided to seek help. Thanks for opening up, because when you did, when you shared your experience of life or your experience of me, you gave me a gift of wonder or appreciation, and you became my teachers.