Private Life

This chapter focuses on the close personal relationships that earlier were viewed as the contexts of personal-self. For most persons, those close personal relationships are nested mainly in the realm of private life. The core relationships of private life typically are those of family life, intimate friendships, and romantic life. Like others in society, some therapists are “single”, or married, or divorced; and among those, some do or do not have children. Another core emotional bond that decisively structures one’s private life is the presence or absence of a relationship with children. Parental status was substantially correlated with age, as was being married also, but to a lesser degree. Comparison of male and female therapists regarding their private life relationship patterns showed only a few specific significant differences, even though statistically significant overall. The higher proportion of men and women were married and parents.