Lucy opened up to me because she was so depressed all the time. However, as she told me her story, it was evident that she was able to express with considerable vigor and excitement her anger about having no boyfriend. She was also quite excited about her fantasy of going for a vacation to Abuja. She also demonstrated strong feelings when she spoke of her fears that she would never find a good partner in life. She hated to think that she might be left alone, lonely and deprived of the children she longed to have.

Lucy was well employed and earned a coveted professional salary. She had a hopeful future for promoting and advancement. She was highly respected by what she listed as her reasons for being chronically depressed. She was angry about her personal situation of being alone. She feared what she saw as her and future. She expressed these feelings with appropriate strength. Her excitement about the ideal prospects of vacations and motherhood were all surprisingly intense for a woman who claimed she was depressed. That is, Lucy's affect in all the areas that count emotional was remarkably resilient.

Depressed people have emotional expressiveness. They are unable to show that they are sad, mad, glad or scared. Lucy overflowed with all four. She was surely not depressed. Well, then what was her suffering? I sensed that it was quite important to her and me to find that out. What was it that she was really feeling? There seemed to be an aura of sadness about her. She seemed to have every reason in the world to feel that her life was meaningful. She agreed that her job, salary and lifestyle were in many ways really ideal. However, such a list nonetheless left her feeling at a loss and empty.

I asked her to tell me about her friendships and valued relationships. What she wanted she thought, was real love, though she was not sure exactly what she meant by that. Lucy was not depressed, she was sad. She wanted a companion. The men her age - she was 28 - seemed immature, trivial and without substance. She wanted her sexuality and spirituality to be United in an invested relationship with a worthy lover....