Disease and dis-ease are two different things...

I think I need to actually write this down: I liked being at work today. I'm only saying that because that's a fairly radical thing for me to say.
The only thing that leads me to say that particularly today is because I felt a bit more useful than I usually do. Let me try to explain: sure, a good portion of my job is to look at medical stuff, diagnose a problem, give somebody medicine or something that will make it go away, problem solved, whoopee. To me, that's a bit mechanical, a bit simplistic, a bit too square and logical.
What an even bigger chunk of my job involves is looking objectively at people's life circumstances and diagnose what's holding them back. That is to say, look at their relationships, their marriages, their work lives and point out what's really wrong with them. Now, it is frustrating to do this with individuals who, for various reasons are not able to listen or hear anything I have to say, let alone internalize it and do something productive with it. However, when it is with people who have the wherewithal to make some positive changes in their lives, and accept help to direct them to make good choices, then it's very satisfying.
I had a few of those today: a distraught wife, desperately unhappy in her marriage. A man being harassed by an ex, causing him great anxiety. A wife, struggling with the aftermath of her husband's affair. A woman deciding whether to continue her affair with a married man or not. A girl feeling guilty about break-up sex. And on and on it goes (and people wonder why I'm a bit cynical about how deliriously happy marriage can really be). And that was just today.
Helping clarify the underlying issues that resulted in the situations that they are in, that their situations are manifestations of other deeper needs in their lives, and watching a small lightbulb go off in their head, is satisfying. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit like Dr. Phil somehow. Well, like, the old Dr. Phil, not the current one. This is not to say that it's easy to implement life change at all, nor do I think it's as easy as swallowing a pill. However, it is nice to know that a lot of what I do doesn't involve pushing pills or opting for medical, physical explanations for dis-ease, in both body and soul...