Judith Vanessa Hutton Levenson

I have learned almost everything of importance about mental health from working with my patients. Though I consider that I had excellent training, as with many things in life, nothing prepared me for the intensity of my patients’ life-stories. It was a trial by immersion, but as with such journeys, it was also one of discovery. Patients set before me stories of grief, longing, despair, addiction, obsession, but also of surprise, joy, and abundance. At times, they were overtaken by the force of events swirling around them, losing their bearings and sense of agency. Sometimes, we would just hold out for a clearing. Sometimes, by working through symptoms, life-patterns, dream-images, we would gain freedom from a tread-worn, unhappy path. What accounts for the discontent that is specific to humans and leads many to seek the counsel of others – of friends, therapists, ministers? The desire for something other than what is emerges with the capacity for thought, with the human desire for happ