da subjectividade / fenomenologias!

Yet, can therapists or historians or biographers reconstruct a life with any degree of accuracy if the reality of even a single hour cannot be captured? Years ago I conducted an experiment in which a patient and I each wrote our own view of each of our therapy hours. Later when we compared them, it was at times difficult to believe that we described the same hour. Even our views of what was helpful varied. My elegant interpretations? She never ever heard them! Instead she remembered, and treasured, casual, personal, supportive comments I had made.*

At such times one longs for an umpire of reality or some official sharp-imaged snapshot of the hour. How disquieting to realize that reality is illusion, at best a democratization of perception based on participant consensus.

*These differing visions were later published as "Every Day Gets a Little Closer: A Twice Told Therapy"

in Love's Executioner, Irvin Yalom