But now I knew I had to have help; my life was a mess. My second analyst was tall, grave, and austere and, as far as I knew, had no woman. At my urging, he was ruthless with me—that is, truthful. His observations sometimes reached the level of contempt. But I swallowed my resentment: I’d asked for it. “How the hell did I get into this mess?” I demanded. “And why don’t I like whom I’ve become? Tell me.”

He did. He exposed my dissembling, small and large, pulled off my masks and kicked over my poses. He said I lied to myself, constantly, even as I told others the truth. He said I was constantly betraying my true feelings to please others, that most frequently I didn’t say what I felt, only what was useful to say.

But he didn’t condemn me. That wasn’t his technique. He only did, and did thoroughly, what I’d begged him to do. He told me the truth as he knew it, and I accepted it.