laxed and confident outside. It was interesting for me—but more important for her—to see the
things that contributed to her feeling happier.
Now, Peta was a pretty smart young woman. She saw the problems of her situation, and knew
she needed to change directions, but wasn’t sure how. At first, I noticed, she seemed to rely on me to
choose which path we took and which direction we went as we walked through the park, so, when
we came to an intersection in the path, I would slow down, hesitate a little and allow her to choose
her own path. Soon she was deciding which directions she went. Nonetheless, she still felt stuck on
the drug issue.
Let me confess, she wasn’t the only one. During our walks I had tried every card up my sleeve.
Subtly, I had sought to encourage her to make her own choices about what she did. Openly, we dis-
cussed the problems of drugs and the drug culture. I gave her homework exercises for taking control
over her drug-related behaviors. We explored how she could start to build non-drug friendships and
attend a specialty drug-rehabilitation clinic. Nothing seemed to work. Both of us felt frustrated and
I didn’t know what more I could do. That was when Philip came to the rescue.
Returning to my office after one of our walks, I looked across at my desk. Philip was sitting there,
dressed in his tartan vest, a red bow around his neck and a checked cap on his head. He had been
handmade for me by a previous client, a thank-you gift at the end of her therapy. As a result, Philip
was very precious. He was myteddy bear and had never previously been out of my possession, so I
surprised myself when I took him off the desk and handed him to Peta.
“This is Philip,” I said, introducing them to each other. “He would like to spend the week with
you. I don’t know whether there is something that he has to teach you, whether you may teach him
something, or whether there is something that you can learn from each other. I look forward to hear-
ing what you discover.”
When Peta returned the next week Philip was wearing his checked cap, red ribbon and tartan
vest, but he also wore a pair of red pants. As she cuddled him on her lap, I asked what they had learned
from each other.
Peta said, “I realized Philip was very special to you. At first I put him in the lounge room, but
then my drug friends came around and I felt uncomfortable for him. They were smoking and I didn’t
want him polluted with the smell of their dope. I felt embarrassed about them. I didn’t want him see-
ing the sort of people I mixed with, so I moved him to the dressing table in my bedroom. He sat there
looking kindly at me each night as I went to sleep and was looking over me when I awakened in the
morning. I thought he looked immodest without any pants so I made him this little pair of trousers
to wear.”
“So, what’s the most important thing that you have learned in your time together?” I asked.
Peta burst into tears, and the answer that she gave changed the direction of her life. She agreed
to go to a specialty substance-abuse clinic and from there to the agency’s rehabilitation farm. She
loved being outside, working on the farm. The isolation allowed her several months to separate her-
self from both drugs and druggie friends. She found that once she was out of sight they didn’t care
much. They didn’t write or visit and had no interest in how she was progressing.
After the farm she got a job in radio and the last I heard from her was a phone call from another
state, where she had moved to set up a new life for herself.
So what had made the difference for Peta? What helped her to change when she and I had felt
MANAGING CHALLENGESManaging Life’s Challenging Times 209