I am happy to have served as an inspiration. Thank you, that's a nice compliment!

I wonder what is the fine line that separate those who can actually look inwards and those who will resist reflection about the self. The timing? Their personality? The nature of their distress?

I would make it dependent on how the favor of the hour can be used by the counselor, in this case me. So yes, rather the timing. Personality and plight must be well understood by me, the consultant. If I feel ready, if things are set on green, I take this courage and then I can carefully and compassionately express open observations without myself radiating a part of anger or irritation. Basically, any person who is not completely mentally disturbed is able to thematize reflection about themselves.

I don't know if Rüdiger Dahlke is available in English, he often speaks of "sickness/crisis as an opportunity". I see it the same way.

I am interested in how you described depression here. I see your point in highlighting the benefit of being in a state of questioning things. But, I have an observation to make. The questions raised and constructed by a depressive mind can mostly lead to misconstrued findings. No?

Not necessarily, no. There is something about depression that doesn't want to be quiet and that presents the world as grey, bad and worthless. I think it is important that these observations are taken up to the extent that they can lead to further questions that torment a depressed person. He wonders what life is all about, he finds other people insensitive and superficial, often even disturbing and disgusting. ... As long as there is an aggressive part in addition to depression - which it often is - aggression can be made an issue. Because what is pressed down in the true sense of the word wants to be brought to the surface. The questions about the meaning of relationships, work and environment - I'll bet and I can say from experience - are asked by many depressed people.

The wrongly understood results you speak of are for me rather the moments in which a depressed person is not in contact with his fellow world and tries to settle everything with himself and fails. That's why dialogue and exchange with other people is so important, otherwise you can't get out of isolation. Depressed people like to withdraw because they feel that they are a burden for their fellow human beings. That's very sad and not exactly what they need. Rather living life around them, in the sense that other people keep their joie de vivre despite the depressed. A fixed structure and task in life that gives meaning (which often needs to be found anew). That is why I find it so important to tell a depressed person openly that he overstrains his fellow human beings and to appeal to his compassion and to remind him that his acquaintances, family, colleagues or friends and also doctors have only limited capacities and that excessive silence or unfiltered talking would also unsettle the depressed person himself - in the opposite role - and bring him to the edge of his ideas.

I suppose loneliness does that to you. My view on this would be more in the lines that, because of loneliness, they forgot how to be generous and kind towards their fellow men. Maybe their suffering originates from the inability of not being able to give more, due to no longer knowing how.

I agree. They can learn again how to do that.

I feel very hugged :-D and give it back to you. Thank you, we made it home in one piece. I will write a little about the trip within the next days. Greet your hubby and whoever maybe interested to receive it from a German woman :))