ABSTRACT
One of the joys of having one’s own practice is getting to set up your own space to be just the way you want it. I got a lesson in just how sensitive I am to aesthetics when I was in graduate school. The therapy rooms in our psychology clinic were tiny cinder block boxes with two chairs and a little table in them. The cinder block was painted, but I was sure the rats in the biopsych lab on the sixth floor had cheerier accommodations. I will admit that I didn’t do my best therapy as a student—and who does?—but not only because I was just starting out. It’s very difficult to encourage someone when you’re both staring at painted cinderblock. I suspect there may have been some negative associations with the decor. My high school walls were also of painted cinderblock, so perhaps I had some lingering anxiety reactions. Consequently, when I started my own practice, my only space requirement was that the walls would be plastered or have drywall on them.
