a friend fallen flat as a flattened souffle

One of my favorite T group pals of all and also a former neighbor had a big party plan come crashing down upon her ego. She had the numerator cranked way too high on her old happiness equation.

Happiness = Expectations / Results

She was a surgical nurse before retirement, and she relished the act of saving someone's life from deadly peril. She described a liver transplant operation she participated in as being better than the best sex she ever had. That was unforgettable hearing from an eighty year old lady let me tell you.

Her next greatest joy was in her network of relationships. A surgeon, a literature professor, a breeder of champion show dogs, and on to an almost endless list. She met the pope and did not consider it any top ten experience. One day she decided to have a large party at her house, although throwing large parties was something she almost never did. She thought it a pity that all these fine people she knew did not know each other, that if she brought them together the result would be magical, like Madame de Stael's Paris salon. Alas, her party fell completely flat and she never knew why and considered it a dismal failure and great disappointment.

There is a formula for throwing successful large parties, as you probably know. They need a precise starting time (the kickoff at the Super Bowl at 6:30 Eastern Standard Time is mainly institutionalized in our culture because of this very feature.) And they need a large stack of strong liquor. The hard stuff. You assemble 25-35 people at 6:30 sharp and lubricate them with whiskey and gin and your party will be great fun. Eightish, wine, cheese?

Good luck with that.

Surely one of her fabulous friends could have clued her in to this aspect of our material universe. I didn't mention it to her either, although of course when I found out about her trouble it was way too late to do anything about it.

It can be more deflating to find out facts if it is too late. One of my writer pals seemed to take satisfaction in telling me, "you manage your therapy so as to render it completely ineffective." He did not tell me that to help me out. He was pleasing himself as he loved the way it sounded. Also he was wrong. I started out that way and I was not the fastest learner; but I have learned a technique for maximizing therapy effectiveness. It is documented (see e. g. Irving Yalom, Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy) the biggest benefit in therapy is the healthful relationship, regardless of the details. It works best when you connect with the other people in there.

My formula for connection is to work in a reference to "the real world", meaning the world outside the therapy room, meaning in here there are no repercussions at all. In my experience people appreciate hearing this 9 times in 10. My specific formula may not work for you, but the idea that we have a cause-effect relationship between connecting in therapy and useful therapy is science.