Thanks, lighter and Hops! I very much appreciate your thoughts! I wish my friend and book editor, Bert Waters, who died more than a year, was still alive so that we could sit together at the performance. Bert was the one who convinced me to use the play as a prologue because it captures the multiple themes of the book, including therapy as an art, and the character of a therapist being of critical importance. And the 10-minute play served as a summary of my painful and voiceless early experiences in the field--which, unlike Dr. Frank/Friend (a character in the play), I was able to survive. But it would have been much easier if Dr. Frank/Friend had been my therapist through it all!
The last thing Bert told me before he died was: "You can't change the world." He was right, but at his funeral service, I reiterated his final words to me and added: "But you can make a difference in one person's world--and Bert certainly made a difference in mine." Thank you again, Bert...
As always,
Richard
