Terry

The graph below tracks Terry's symptoms during the first 45 days of therapy.

All Terry's symptoms remained at near maximum level throughout the first month of therapy; however, they started diminishing rapidly after the first month.

The graph below tracks Terry's overall progress over the first.

Of the five symptoms of stress that Terry rated, only the highest score is rendered as a stress peak on this graph. The scores Terry gave to the nine elements of each sphere were averaged. The averages were used to graph the intimacy, self, and achievement scores.

To provide a reference point, Terry's maximum pretreatment experiences were each given a score of 10. The client's goal in therapy is to reach experience levels far beyond those previously reported.


1. Within 2 weeks, Terry's intimacy score increased above her previous maximum score of 10. It reached 20 by in the subsequent 2 weeks.
2. Her self and achievement sphere scores (already extremely low) dropped even further absorbing brunt of defense, allowing her intimacy alone to advance.
3. When her intimacy score reached 20, her defenses became exhausted. Self and achievement scores started to recover.

The graph below tracks Terry's symptoms over the first 4 months of therapy.



Psychosis disappeared first in 45 days; anger vanished in 2 months. Depression and anxiety lingered and finally disappeared in 4 months. Physical symptoms (side effects from her multiple medications) had not completely disappeared, while she continued to reduce her medications.

The graph below tracks her overall progress over the first 4 months of therapy.



(Of the five symptoms of stress that Terry rated, only the highest score is rendered as a stress peak on this graph. The scores Terry gave to the nine elements of each sphere were averaged. The averages were used to graph the intimacy, self, and achievement scores.)

After 4 months of therapy, Terry's intimacy score rose several times past the benchmark level of 10. Her symptoms diminished, allowing her self and achievement to rise also above scores of 10.

The graph below tracks her overall progress over the 3 (5th to 8th) month of therapy.



(Of the five symptoms of stress that Terry rated, only the highest score is rendered as a stress peak on this graph. The scores Terry gave to the nine elements of each sphere were averaged. The averages were used to graph the intimacy, self, and achievement scores.)

During the subsequent 3 months (5th to 8th month) of therapy, Terry's self and achievement scores rapidly rose and caught up with intimacy scores (stage III of personality transformation). The scores converged by June, as she reached stage IV of personality transformation.

The four stages of personality transformation are described in detail at Lifetrack Concepts: Intimacy to Growth.

Terry had become depressed when her husband reached the pinnacle of success and her children had gotten married. She should have been ecstatic that all her dreams had come true. And yet, instead of becoming happier, she became preoccupied with her husband becoming old and ill. This thought pattern was quite out of character for her. She had been an active and resourceful person with many interests and friends. There was no apparent psychological reason for her depression. Therefore, medical center physicians made a diagnosis of endogenous depression (caused by chemical disorder of the brain rather than from outside events or psychological causes), and she was treated accordingly with medications.

Because she did not respond quickly, more and more medications were added to her regime, and she was on six daily medications by the time she had her first international phone consultation with me. In a severe and paralyzing stage of depression, she would think of dying and repeatedly begged her husband to hospitalize her. When she finally started showing signs of improvement, her doctor at the medical center advised her to double her dose of antidepressant medication. The physician believed that she was finally beginning to respond to medications. She politely declined. She had not told the doctor at the center that she was receiving therapy over the phone. She did "not [want] to offend the doctor"; perhaps she was not sure if Lifetrack therapy over the phone would really work.

She reduced her medications to practically nothing on her own over the first 6 months of therapy. Although the six medications had clearly failed in the 7 months after her initial diagnosis, she had become psychologically dependent on them and was afraid to meddle with them. Therefore, she was told to reduce them when, based on her own judgment, she felt that she no longer needed them. The whole therapy lasted 12 months, and both she and her husband progressed through classic transformations of their personalities.

Terry's case is described in depth at Breakthrough Intimacy - Sad to Happy through Closeness.

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