A patient recently came into my practice and pleaded: “I just want to be happy.” I was touched. Afterall, who doesn’t want to be happy? It was such a seemingly small and reasonable request. I felt that I was letting her down by saying that I could not guarantee happiness. That happiness is a state of wellbeing that encompasses living a good life and has to be self-generated. As a psychiatrist, I could help her with her thieves of happiness. Those forces which thwart her attempts to be happy. In this patient, it was the unholy triad of depression, poor boundaries…
