Therapy Session 1 Dated Friday, 3/07/97

Thomas, a new patient, pines for an ex-girlfriend who saved him from succumbing to a dissolute lifestyle.

Therapy Session 2 Dated Friday, 3/14/97

Thomas tells how his father's tragic death warped his childhood.

Therapy Session 3 Dated Friday, 3/21/97

Thomas, upset that quiet loners are often labeled as psychopaths, explores his childhood experiences of psychiatrists, Ritalin, and the roots of his social phobias.

Therapy Session 4 Dated Friday, 4/04/97
Therapy Session 5 Dated Friday, 4/11/97
Therapy Session 6 Dated Friday, 4/18/97

Thomas talks about Sharon, the girl whom he loved and lost a year and a half ago and yet still aches for.

Therapy Session 7 Dated Friday, 4/25/97
Therapy Session 8 Dated Friday, 5/02/97

Thomas exhibits classic signs of agoraphobia and panic disorder.

Therapy Session 9 Dated Friday, 5/09/97

Thomas shows up drunk and admits that, at some level, he secretly enjoys emotionally agonizing pain.

Therapy Session 10 Dated Friday, 5/23/97

Thomas is more comfortable in social settings and doesn't know whether to attribute it to the librium or to the visit of his brother Alex, whom he thinks of almost as his happy twin.

Therapy Session 11 Dated Monday, 6/02/97

Thomas wants to overcome his fear of social situations and learn to pick up girls.

Therapy Session 12 Dated Friday, 6/13/97

Thomas runs into his ex-girlfriend Sharon completely by chance and learns that she's going to get married.

Therapy Session 13 Dated Friday, 6/20/97

Thomas is instantly ensnared when his ex-girlfriend Sharon reaches out to him long distance--she's recalling her old passions while she explores her feelings for the man she's slated to marry.

Therapy Session 14 Dated Friday, 6/27/97

Thomas has a revealing dream--other than the sex, which is great, Sharon and he have little in common and her attempt to rekindle an old flame may not be in his best interests, even if it's what he most fervently desires.

Therapy Session 15 Dated Friday, 7/25/97

Thomas angrily discontinues the medication that you've prescribed because he feels that it has made him disinterested in everything.

Therapy Session 16 Dated Friday, 8/08/97

Thomas is unhappy because he won an all-expense-paid trip to the Bahamas.

Therapy Session 17 Dated Monday, 8/25/97

You encourage Thomas to try to overcome his social phobia by attempting to pick up a girl in a bookstore.

Telephone Call Dated Thursday, 9/04/97

Thomas, clearly drunk and possibly self-destructive, calls to cancel his appointment.

Therapy Session 18 Dated Friday, 9/12/97

As Thomas' social phobia is probed, he gets hostile and loses his sardonic sense of humor, revealing a possible undiagnosed mental problem.

Therapy Session 19 Dated Friday, 9/26/97

Thomas met a girl through the Internet, but seems determined to try to screw up his relationship with her.

Therapy Session 20 Dated Friday, 10/10/97

Thomas' new, optimistic attitude about his life and his business trip seems more likely to be cooked up for public consumption than to be a true breakthrough.

Therapy Session 21 Dated Friday, 04/03/98

Tom, a former patient, returns to therapy when he realizes that his fear of social interaction is depriving him of any hope of a relationship with a woman.

Therapy Session 22 Dated Friday, 04/17/98

In a fit of jealousy over the advantages possessed by a hated rival, Thomas lets loose a computer virus.

Therapy Session 23 Dated Friday, 05/01/98

Thomas seems determined to sabotoge his prospects for a relationship with Rachel by acting on his savage jealousy.

Therapy Session 24 Dated Friday, 05/15/98

Thomas is paralyzed into social inaction through the fear that his gloomy prophecies about his own romantic future will come true.

Therapy Session 25 Dated Friday, 05/29/98

Thomas is in agony when Rachel thwarts his plans by bringing a date to a co-worker's wedding.

Therapy Session 26 Dated Friday, 06/12/98

Tom is more jealous of Rachel's social ease than he is of the men who are actively pursuing her.

Therapy Session 27 Dated Monday, 06/29/98

Tom lists the social tasks that he would like to try but currently is too fearful to undertake.

Therapy Session 28 Dated Monday, 07/20/98

While on Prozac, Tom's dreaming is becoming more vivid: a happy dream about flying transforms into a nightmare of sexual betrayal.

Therapy Session 29 Dated Monday, 08/03/98

Thomas sees his own sense of unremitting loneliness echoed in Nicholas Cage's suicidal character in "Leaving Las Vegas."

Therapy Session 30 Dated Monday, 08/17/98

Tom discloses that he experiences occasional auditory hallucinations--an unintelligible jumble of voices, all strung together, all speaking urgently.

Therapy Session 31 Dated Monday, 09/14/98

Thomas ends a long period of celibacy by having sex with an old girlfriend who previously broke his heart.

Therapy Session 32 Dated Monday, 09/28/98

Thomas' loneliness escalates dramatically after he experiences the hard-sell of a video dating service.

Therapy Session 33 Dated Monday, 10/12/98

Thomas' difficulties functioning socially can be traced back to high school.

Therapy Session 34 Dated Monday, 11/02/98

Although ashamed by the memories, Thomas recounts early sexual experiences in college.

Therapy Session 35 Dated Monday, 11/16/98

Tom has been walking a tightrope--having sex with his ex-girlfriend while trying to avoid getting emotionally intimate with her.

Therapy Session 36 Dated Monday, 02/15/99

Tom feels he's cured after Sharon, the woman with whom Tom's been obsessed, accepts his proposal of marriage.