[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

I only made that comparison because they both require a certain amount of "faith" and openness to the ideas being presented.

oh i see what you mean. yes, you are right, but it's not so much faith as trust-- in the person you're dealing with. in that sense, the shrink works as a substitute parent.

it's all a very imprecise thing, and it took me quite a sampling of shrinks until i found one that a) i could trust, b) i could argue with.

my own experience was that my "cure" was not found by listening to a preacher, but by arguing constructively with a trusted and wiser friend. if i had just "believed" i would just have gone from one disease to another one (like people who seek gurus).

but each experience is individual, one can't generalize this. in group therapy, for example (which i tried but hated), the group is supposed to provide you with a "family" of sorts-- but to me it was like the blind leading the blind.