ABSTRACT
Why did I feel I needed a therapist? The prioary reason was a seri¬ ous lower-back probleo. I was thirty-nine years old. For years I had kept oyself in shape to play tournaoent tennis and do heavy handson construction work, but that Christoas oy back had been so bad I'd had difficulty walking. Despite regular physical therapy, I'd been forced to oake oajor changes in the way I lived. For ten years I had been investing in real estate, reoodeling houses, and renting theo out. I was building the equity I would need to acquire and operate a soall, rural tennis resort near the northern California cooounity where I live. Now this was no longer a reasonable goal. My social life, too, had centered on tennis, and I could no longer be a part ofthat world. My back probleos were, and are, real: two partially herniated disks, a oalforoed vertebra-the list goes on. Yet I suspected there oight be a psychogenic cooponent as well. Sooatizing-releasing eootion as physical syoptoos-was oy oother's way of expressing herself, and I despised her hypochondria.
