A guy walks into a therapist’s office — sadly this is no joke — and says, “I just read an article in the New York Times, and I’ve got some questions. What do you know about my condition? What’s your success rate with people like me? When will I get well?”

More and more, psychotherapists are fielding such questions due to the recent onslaught of articles proclaiming that short-term “evidence-based” practices — e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT — “work” better than long-term psychodynamic treatments. The bottom line is, there is “evidence” supporting the efficacy of both. But I don’t intend to go there, or to define “CBT” and “psychodynamic” for the many people have no idea what the terms even mean; to do so would only fan the flames of the Republican vs. Democrat-style wars between the two. Instead, I’d like to discuss how therapy works (all therapy) as opposed to why it works, and how specific people, such as those in the LGBT communities, are affected when we presume to know what makes someone mentally and emotionally “well”.

First, what does “well” even mean? We can all agree that our bodies are unwell when attacked by the common cold, cancer, or even ourselves (e.g., self-mutilation or starvation). But who determines the wellness of the boy who feels more like a girl, or the girl who wants to marry a girl, or the girl who feels ostracized for lacking “sex appeal”? One such arbiter is presumably Harriet Brown, the latest writer (and non-mental health professional) published in the Times this month, who asserts that motivational therapy techniques based on “scientific research” are “working,” while clinicians who are “good with people” — as opposed to being “scientific” in their approach — are wasting your time. The idea of wellness underlying Brown’s op-ed piece is summed up in comparisons she makes between psychotherapy and buying a car: Brown quotes a psychologist who cites studies indicating that less than half of psychotherapists use “motivational techniques”, and who reasons, “You wouldn’t buy a car under those conditions”.

This is a conveniently tidy analogy, but the wellness of a car is objectively determined and the emotional wellness of a human being is, obviously, not. Cars have malfunctions, not subjective experience. They don’t have to conceal their sexual desires fearing discrimination or physical attack. Cars do not privately suffer from identity conflicts or body dysmorphia. (I’ve yet to hear of an anxious SUV that feels like a Mini Cooper on the inside.) If “well” for us means our “parts” are in order, who gets to decide what our sexual, emotional, and gender-expressive “parts” should look like? Who can say if we’re running properly?

When a client enters my office I don’t know them until I know them, and knowing a person requires time, patience, and the wisdom to dispense with assumptions. I may use “evidence-based” directives at the beginning of a treatment with someone who can’t focus, or washes her hands until they bleed, or starves himself (and may refer them for medical treatment, if necessary). But even if such a client were to increase focus, reduce hand washing, or begin to eat, is that where treatment ends? Is she well? Engine fixed, exterior painted, let’s sell this car?

Let’s say a lesbian-identified client with severe anxiety enters therapy. We could use scientific research to explain why there are more straight-identified women in the world than women like her. We could also find studies that explain why she might have anxiety as a result. We could even prescribe evidence-based techniques to help reduce her symptoms. But would any of this validate her unique experience or give her space to discuss how she lives, how she struggles, and how she survives — not all lesbians with anxiety but She, with her specific history and challenges?

The benefits of psychotherapy are in being seen, heard, and having the space to, as psychoanalyst Donnell Stern says, “formulate experience”– often, experience that never before had the chance to breathe. Therapy is ideally a safe relationship in which to discuss how our bodies, desires, and sociopolitical contexts impact our lives. It is an opportunity to discuss the undiscussable and how this very lack of discussion has influenced our behaviors — a point I have made on Huffpost earlier this year, regarding the discourse on guns and mental health. No matter what method, style, type, or technique is being used, good therapy allows one to be; to awaken to one’s adaptive, or perhaps maladaptive, patterns; and to consider the propensity for these patterns, once “healed,” to strike again in another form. (Not unlike fat cells accumulating in one’s arms after one has had liposuction everywhere else– I’ve seen it happen.) Therapy helps us to be us, to genuinely be, feel, and think in relationship with another.

As I stated above, a variety of therapy approaches can be useful at different times, but to be inundated with New York Times-endorsed articles about types of therapy that “work,” fix,” or make us “well,” to the exclusion of other types, is damaging. It is damaging not only for therapists who have dedicated their lives to the art of empathic recognition, but also for the multitude of people whose complex stories, needs, and longings remain unsung — including lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people who are regularly told that they are “not well” by much of society.

Renowned psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jack Drescher once explained in a paper how “traditional scientific viewpoints discredit personal voices” and, consequently, how his approach to therapy had shifted from “a scientific view…toward a hermeneutic one,” particularly because of his identity as a gay man and his desire to help other queer people.

All of us deserve to have our unique stories heard in a therapeutic context, beyond our “symptom” pictures and beyond the “scientific” solution to our “problems.” As a client recently said to me, “getting well implies returning to the way I once was, but therapy has helped me to adapt and to grow. Simply erasing my symptoms would be like retreating, and why would I want to do that?”

Who creates a massacre? Can we identify that person? Can they be stopped? Congress hopes to answer these questions by the end of February. But where will these answers come from?

Enter The Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Prevention and Children’s Safety, the Connecticut legislators who will draft a bill, informed in part by public hearings related to the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook. The “Mental Health Public Hearing”, which took place on Tuesday Jan. 29 in Hartford, garnered a variety of suggestions to improve state mental health services, most of which included the words: “psychiatrist”, “mental illness”, and “medication.” Do these words get us any closer to answering the interminable questions above, or do they simply attempt to soothe our desperate and restless desire to control the uncontrollable?

Massacres create chaos and despondency, both of which Americans abhor. We like to make sense of such things by compartmentalizing (blaming “mental illness”), putting someone in charge (a psychiatrist), and endowing them with a weapon to cut off murderous plots at the knees (medication). This is all implied when solutions such as involuntarily psychiatric treatment (which was recommended at the Hartford hearing) are put on the table.

For such solutions to be effective assumes the following: Potential killers all exhibit distinct and palpable neon-signs of a mental disorder (the words “schizophrenia”, “autism”, and “psychotic” were repeatedly used in Tuesday’s hearing). They will be compliant with mental health treatment, can afford treatment, and/or have insurance that covers treatment. They will confess to a psychiatrist — on the first or second visit — that they have a clear and actionable plan to harm themselves or someone else; and if not, the psychiatrist (who after-all, tops the pecking order of mental health providers) can instantly identify the patient’s desire, intent, and potential to carry through with such a plan. After pinning the scarlet letter of a diagnosis on the patient, and prescribing corresponding medications, the psychiatrist will have successfully thwarted the patient’s plot to kill. And all of this somehow decreases the chances of future massacres.

To me this sounds terribly Sisyphean, i.e., like a ton of wasted effort. It reminds me of the late psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell, who compared the mental health practitioner’s hasty pursuit of solutions to what Taoists might say, “[It] is like pursuing a thief hiding in the forest by loudly banging a drum”.

Our mental health services currently have a lot of “drum banging”, and not a whole lot of listening, searching, or discovery. This short-term approach to treatment is largely imposed by insurance companies, which limit coverage for services — encouraging a “get’em in, get’em out”, revolving door culture at clinics, hospitals, and private practices — and also favoring medical treatment provided by a psychiatrist, as opposed to the more complex, relational work of a psychotherapist, social worker or counselor. It is also due to an ever increasing consumerist influence on mental health, whereby services are guaranteed to work fast, and are pitched in 140 characters or less — this has only been exacerbated by articles (several of which appeared in The New York Times last year) encouraging therapists to sell short-term treatment in order to remain relevant.

I agree with Dr. Harold Schwartz, the psychiatrist at the Hartford hearing who said, “The failure to recognize illness and the need for treatment… is a function of the disease’s impact on the brain”, but it is the word “recognize” I would emphasize, not the words “illness” or “disease.” We do not currently invest in the art of recognition in our mental health services, a process that requires time: Time to create a safe environment for anyone seeking help (not just those who blip on the radar as clearly”disordered”); time for the patient to establish trust with a practitioner (one who has cultivated the art of empathic relating, as opposed to quick labeling); time to allow nihilistic fantasies to enter the treatment; and time to help the patient separate these fantasies (which may be understandable, in context) from actions. None of this is possible using the quick-fire approaches to treatment we currently subscribe to, and continue to request.

The resistance to long-term treatment is partly due to the various misconceptions about it: that it is a “thing of the past”, that it exclusively implies Woody Allen characters sitting on a couch three times a week, jabbering on about bourgeoisie, “white-people-problems”, that it is a waste of time and money. These stereotypes are not only a problem for therapists who train and work tirelessly on the art of empathic, nuanced, relationship and analysis, but more importantly for the multitude of people who can greatly benefit from long-term treatment, but are never given the chance.

In my own work, I’ve been fortunate enough to “recognize” a long-term patient who had murderous fantasies. I met Harry while working at a community mental health clinic. He didn’t want therapy, and I didn’t want to give it to him. He was loud, anxious, and rambling. He wanted a psychiatric diagnosis for his application for Social Security disability insurance (which he should have received for an obviously distressing physical disability and lifelong learning disability, but had been denied several times because he seemed “mentally healthy” — an example of how unhelpfully categorical our systems can be). At our first session, I was disturbed by his relentless wish to “knock-off” a variety of people he believed were “conspiring” against him — though he wouldn’t specify the people or a plan, rendering these rantings unreportable. After two evaluations by our staff psychiatrist, it was determined that Harry did not exhibit symptoms requiring medication, and it was recommended that he engage in psychotherapy, with an emphasis on behavioral modification — fortunately he had good insurance.

Sitting through our early sessions was nearly intolerable for me, as I had to endure gruesomely detailed revenge fantasies, resembling one of the Saw films. I not only dreaded our sessions, but also what he might do afterward. I tried Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques, which are designed to alter patient thought processes, and corresponding behaviors, but he shut me down each time, convinced that no one could ever understand his feelings. It wasn’t until I learned to validate his fantasies, to encourage him to bring even more of them into the room (while also getting clinical supervision for myself), that he began to trust me. Why shouldn’t he feel that the Social Security office “had it in” for him, and why wouldn’t he, in kind, have violent fantasies toward it? (He had been denied benefits time and time again, though he was clearly ailing). Harry learned that someone could in fact recognize his pain, and that his understandable rage, and related revenge fantasies could have a life of their own, separate and distinct from taking action. Over the next couple of years Harry started group therapy as well, made friends, and gradually his mind became less troubled. With my help, he eventually got his disability benefits, but voluntarily continued treatment with me. The fantasies he reported shifted from the horror genre to films of the Rocky variety; he began to narrate his own story as a guy down on his luck who would become a champion with love and support.

Instead of forcing “mentally ill” people into short-term treatment and a “sentence” of medication, we should be forcing insurance companies to cover long-term relational treatment — in tandem with medication management in some cases. Anyone with coverage should be encouraged to enter therapy, without fear of stigma or of limited time. There are no easy solutions to the horrific shooting epidemic we face, but airing on the side of caution means giving people the chance to be seen, and heard, as opposed to controlled, and numbed into oblivion. After all, why are these killers piggy-backing off each other’s news stories if not to be recognized?

I like to play a little game called “Realism or Racism.” Here’s how it works: Whenever you see a movie, TV show or play, ask yourself, “Are the actors all white due to realism (i.e., casting a non-white actor would seriously confuse the story), or racism (i.e., the producers have chosen material for which they can argue — in a seemingly reasonable way — that casting a non-white actor would contaminate the story’s clarity, but really such casting would only put a greater variety of talented people to work, and increase three-dimensional representation of people of color, and if such casting would indeed confuse the story, well… the producers could have chosen material with more diverse casting opportunities to begin with, but… didn’t)”? Wanna play?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (which opened last Friday) is ripe for this game, though to be frank, I entered the theater hoping for a journey less expected.

In November 2010 — while The Hobbit was filming — it was reported that a casting agent had been fired from the New Zealand-based production, for placing ads seeking actors with “light skin tones.” After “sacking” the agent, director Peter Jackson’s production company officially denied sanctioning the casting notice (which should come as a relief, if not for the fact that of the double-digit actors appearing in The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy — for which The Hobbit is a prequel and which Jackson also directed — I can recall dozens of big folks, small folks, and pointy-eared folks, but not a single person of color). I maintained hope that this was a significant learning moment for Jackson and company.

However, while watching The Hobbit, I found myself a reluctant player in a round of “Realism or Racism?” As in LOTR, Jackson’s cameras pan across throngs of actors of all shapes and sizes, with an array of hairy feet and mystical beards, but the spectrum of human skin tone moves only from pale to paler (even amongst the progressive, vegan elves). I suppose one could argue this is for the sake of realism, though I defy even the most intense JRR Tolkein fan to do so without resembling the irrationally artery-busting-angry, bunny-hating cartoon, Yosemite Sam — or John McCain defending”traditional marriage” (pretty much the same image).

Now, all-white casting (or whitewashing) is certainly ubiquitous in Hollywood, but it’s one thing to argue,”Everyone living in English manors in 1912 was white” (though even Downtown Abbey’s producers are working to increase cast diversity on the BBC series), and quite another to say, “Everyone living on Middle Earth — this dreamworld that never existed, which is populated by myriad mythical creatures — is white.” But that’s exactly what non-white would-be extras for The Hobbit were told.

It’s hard to imagine racial equality becoming a reality when we can’t envision it in our movies, which represent our dreams and, therefore, inform our behaviors. (As professor Nina Bandelj says, actors’ portrayals of characters contribute to the social reproduction of human identities, and according to SAG AFTRA, the union representing all onscreen performers in America, “There is no other medium as capable of affecting human behavior and thought as films.”)

It becomes utterly disturbing when racial equality isn’t even allowed to enter our fantasy films, which represent the furthest reaches of our dreamiest dreams.

SAG AFTRA (along with their New Zealand sister organization, MEAA) has long advocated for minority actors, both in terms of employment, as well as accurate and varied representation of characters onscreen. Throughout the 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) urged SAG to see that African American actors who were “struggling to attain their rightful place in the life of the nation and the world” were not handicapped by lack of representation “in a medium which speaks powerfully to people everywhere.” These efforts have certainly had an impact on Hollywood and we owe some of the greatest performances and most memorable characters of the last 60 years to this advocacy.

However, as professor Dean Spade says in his book Normal Life, advocacy and “law reform efforts taken up under the banner of anti-discrimination have often failed to alter norms” — the “norms,” for example, that were deeply absorbed into the minds of Peter Jackson’s casting directors (who likely find it difficult to dream of multiracial hobbits since they’ve never seen them onscreen themselves) when they curtly rejected actors of color with, “We are looking for light-skinned people. … You’ve got to look like a hobbit.”

So it appears we have a chicken and egg problem: the “norms” won’t change until the casting choices do, and the casting choices are contingent on the “norms.” But where is the hope for change, when our dreamers refuse to dream?

If only Hollywood, television, and even much of Broadway, would take a page from professional Shakespeare, musicals, and regional theater, where leaps of faith in casting take place regularly and for the greater good. For instance no one blinks an eye — particularly in theaters outside of New York City — if Hamlet is played by a black actor while his mother is cast white, if Roxy in Chicago is Southeast Asian, or if any or all of the leads in Les Miserables (which has a strong history of color-blind casting) are people of color. Perhaps it’s the heightened nature of Shakespeare and musicals (and the limited budgets in regional theaters) that allows (or forces) us to use our imaginations. Perhaps big-budget films (like the upcoming Les Miserables movie) and certain Broadway plays can simply afford to cast productions within the realm of what some call “realism” and others “racism.”

I once heard a famous playwright say that “Theater should always mirror reality,” and this he used to justify his relentless insistence that all of his plays should be cast by specified race — most of his characters are specified as white and male, like himself. The question of course is, “whose reality are we talking about”? And, therefore, “whose realism”?

I like better what Thomas Hardy once said, “Art is a disproportioning of realities, to show more clearly the features that matter in those realities, which if merely copied or reported inventorially, might possibly be observed, but would more probably be overlooked.” I can’t help but think of the missed casting opportunities in The Hobbit when I read this.

I found that the trailer for Les Miserables stirred a bit more hope for change than the The Hobbit (even as I wondered if Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson or Oscar nominated Queen Latifah were considered for respective roles they would be great for in it). Listening to Anne Hathaway wistfully sing “I Dreamed a Dream,” I dreamed a dream of my own. I dreamed that the folks who will inevitably be moved to tears by her pasty, ill, homeless woman will be equally moved by the ill, homeless women of color they encounter on our city streets. I dreamed that the black leader we have in reality (as opposed to the onscreen versions Morgan Freeman has expanded our dreams with for years prior) would be treated with the respect he deserves — the same respect we’ve given every president before him. I dreamed that Martin Luther King’s dream will be more of a reality in 2013 than it is today, at least on our movie screens, and therefore in our personal dreams of the future.

Thank you for playing “Realism or Racism.” Now that you’ve gotten the hang of it, join me for a round of “Realism or Sexism,” followed by “Realism or Homophobia,” “Realism or Transphobia,” “Realism or Xenophobia” and “Realism or Ableism” — only this time, you can pick the movie.

“Alms for Scrooge!”

I recently heard a man squelch this at someone asking for change on a New York City street. I cringed, at once identifying with the self-named “Scrooge” and also repelled by him. It struck me how often we are selfish (and even cruel) when our intention is simply to be self-preserving, spewing unnecessary venom when all we really need to say is “not today.”

Brusk as we may be with strangers, we are even more so with our families during “the most wonderful time of the year,” adding fuel to the fierce flames of the family-drama-laden “hellidays.”

I’ve already advised you to trim your “Christmas three” and to know your “safe-goat” so as to glide through your holiday-family-inferno unscathed. Now, if you can be self-preserving without being selfish, you may actually enjoy yourself on top of all this — and even have some generosity to spare.

In order to self-preserve, we must first understand this “self” of ours and how the holidays affect it.

The “holidays” — American, secular Christmas in particular — come with a great deal of expectation and disappointment. As children, we are promised an event during which we’ll receive custom-made presents, treats, and magic. In short, we are promised our fantasies. We anticipate receiving everything our parents can’t give us in reality on that one special day. As adults, we learn to temper, bury or extinguish these fantasies — like psychoanalyst Adam Phillips says, we become “ingenious at resisting the lead of our desire” — but when we reassemble with our families at the end of the year, as many regularly and crudely do, we regress. We look to each other to fulfill those old promises, to make those custom fantasies come true, and of course, it never works.

Enter the highly-subjective, often inscrutable, irritatingly-inevitable disappointments, e.g. “This is our year to host.”

“You didn’t go shopping yet?”

“Is he gonna be in the kitchen all night?”

“Is she crying again?”

“Of course we’re going to the movies. We always go to the movies. Why wouldn’t we go to the movies?”

“Um… we don’t allow them to watch Charlie Brown.”

“Thanks, but he already HAS the red truck.”

“You’re leaving already?”

“Sorry, but I’m allergic to cats and gluten and that figgy pudding you make… and I tell you this every year.”

“Can’t you get OVER yourself for one damn day?”

We become drained by the black hole of “their” uniquely-unfulfilled promises and find ourselves too deprived of our own wish-fulfillment to offer even the tiniest of Tiny Tim “blessings.”

This is why some completely avoid family festivities altogether (like Luke Skywalker escape-podding from The Death Star), and in some cases that may be the best option. However, I suggest (whenever possible) that it’s better to be with family on this occasion than not to be. I can tell you with absolute certainty that when we defer family conflict it kindles in our guts, awaiting the backdraft it will eventually become when triggered by a family member — or possibly even a stranger asking for change on the street.

“But,” you might ask, “if our families will reliably burden and disappoint us, how can we tolerate a holiday with them, let alone have a good time?”

Well, the bad news is that not a one of them is going to check off our Christmas list… but that’s also the good news. To a large extent, adulthood comes at the price of childlike fantasy and expectation, but this opens the door to something arguably more liberating: the ability to treat ourselves.

If your dad won’t cook your favorite roast goose, make it for your friends the week before. If your mom always forgets which spa service to put on the gift certificate, pamper yourself to a full-day package. If your brother never has a gift for you, buy yourself the video game you always wanted as a kid but never got. Take a weekend in Puerto Rico, buy some canvases and paints, take the walk or the scenic drive you always postpone, make the crafty ornaments you’ve been thinking of, meditate in the park, take that tennis lesson, or buy that trumpet. There’s absolutely no reason not to indulge yourself with comfort and joy, so long as it’s reasonably within your means and not harmful to you or anyone else (you might reconsider the trumpet if you live in a railroad apartment with paper thin walls).

This of course removes a lot of the pressure to make any dreams come true at the big family event. Think of time spent with the fam as a brief military mission, wherein you’ll be parachuted down to drop off baubles, taste your aunt’s new quiche, ask your sister about her job in person, earn a new nickname from your nephew, offer that Tiny Tim toast, and get helicoptered out before everything goes south. You’ll have a shared experience to fall back on the next time you speak to one of them (instead of awkward silence), and though none of them will know about your wish list, that’s just fine, since you’ll be the one answering it.

Charles Dickens’ infamous character Ebenezer Scrooge actually had it right, to a certain extent: By making and saving money, he understood that one needs to take care of oneself before it’s even possible to take care of anyone else. His problem, of course, was that he didn’t take the next step of investing in his own joy, nourishing his body or his soul (self-preservation) and therefore couldn’t be bothered to take care of anyone else (selfishness). Fortunately, we know better.

Take care of yourself first; be naughty (have a Bravo marathon with your favorite mac and cheese), or nice (adopt an orphaned cat, dog or chinchilla) but spoil yourself like no one else can. You’ll then have the motivation to play a round of Pictionary with your family and the willingness to offer an easy smile, a blessing, or even some change to a stranger in need.

The Scandinavian Yule Goat symbolizes the relationship between sacrifice and celebration during the holidays. It refers to the Nordic God Thor’s slaughtering of goats for an end-of-year feast (he would resurrect them the next day). We may need to sacrifice a goat of our own to get through the family drama-fueled “hellidays” — a “safe-goat.”

What is that?

As opposed to a family scapegoat — an immediate family member at whom we direct unprocessed anxiety or anger — a “safe-goat” is a person far enough outside our immediate family system at whom we can direct unprocessed anxiety or anger without inflaming conflicts between present members.

Last week I advised you to “trim your Christmas three,” i.e., to avoid triangulating or scapegoating a third party during any family contact leading up to the holidays, in order to coast through to New Year’s Day family drama-free. But, as my siblings have since reminded me, finding yourself short on material with your family can cause anxiety, making you vulnerable to the flames of gossip. At these times, you may need to deploy a “safe-goat.”

Now, this is not a model for long-term healthy relationships; in general, bonding with one person by directing negative energy at another is toxic and prevents us from individual and relational growth. But right now we’re just talking about getting by. You might think of it as symptom management, cough syrup for your strep throat as opposed to an antibiotic. That being said, before using the “safe-goat” solution, you’ll want to read and adhere to the warning label: At no time should you disparage the “safe-goat” in a way that fosters prejudice against a type or group of people, as this will breed unnecessary ill will at a time of peace and hope. The point is to have at your fingertips someone familiar to the group over whom you can share a quick and easy gasp, growl or guffaw, and this should only be used as a last resort.

How do you choose your “safe-goat”?

Remember, you’re trying to avoid clear and present conflict, so obviously you’ll want to pick someone you won’t see over the holidays and who is separate enough from your immediate family that talking about them won’t cause tension between any two of you. An aunt or uncle could work, so long as they’re not top-billing stars in your family drama. Special guest star status should be the limit (as in, you see them once every three years at most). Twice or thrice removed relatives are good options. Shared (or formerly shared) neighbors, high-school teachers and DMV workers are even better.

An ideal “safe-goat” will have a personality quirk that affects everyone the same way, e.g., the absent uncle who suddenly appears when he needs money, the aunt whose monologue skills rival Fiona Shaw’s (only aggressively draining as opposed to entertaining), the “hyper-healthy” cousin who’s consistently “not surprised” when one of you gets sick, your mother’s neighbor who calls every five minutes to find out what she’s doing, the former high school art teacher who now posts homemade music videos about the apocalypse on YouTube, the DMV worker with the fixed smirk who somehow manages to trigger a full-blown public tantrum in each of you.

The roasting of the “safe-goat” will ideally fill dead air — much like the celebrity roasting panel on Chelsea Lately – but only for a few minutes, in order to keep you comfortably present with your family. You’ll want to be mindful of the potential for your gossip to go nuclear (as in family), in which case you should redirect back to a “safe-goat.” You should also keep your ears peeled for an opportunity to switch topics altogether — to mutually-interesting current events, movies, books, etc. — if and when possible.

Just as Thor resurrected his sacrificed goats the day after his feast, so should you mentally redeem your “safe-goat” after your event has passed and their purpose has been served. Make sure to discard any residual negative thoughts you generated about them the day before. As the holidays come to a close, and the new year begins, you can then turn to cultivating your individual family relationships in the long-term without any third party involvement — save, perhaps the help of a psychotherapist or spiritual guide.

We should all put in the time to learn how to relate to one another without triangulating, but the “hellidays” can be desperate times, and it can only help to go in armed with a “safe-goat.”