He also came to realize that his marriage was suffering because of his insistence that his wife not work. She, on the other hand, felt overcontrolled by her husband: she felt that he stood in the way of her personal growth.
As a result of his increased awareness, George came to see that losing his former job was really a blessing in disguise. His marriage began to improve when George's depression for the first time put him in a dependent position; he needed his wife's emotional support, and she, in turn, began to see him as a person, with weaknesses of his own, and not as she had idealized him.
George's depression allowed him to understand and appreciate his wife's previously frustrated sense of initiative. He now encouraged her to do what she had long wanted to do, to develop a career.
Because George received disability during his depression, his insurance company had information about him on file. When George was interviewed for a new job a year after he became depressed, he was asked at the interview if he had been ill during the preceding year, when he had not worked.
George decided to be truthful and said that he had become depressed and that as a result of the experience had learned much about himself. In particular, he had learned what kind of work really interested him and gave him a sense of satisfaction. Although it had been a difficult period, George said that he felt he had gained a great deal from the experience.
George's prospective employer was impressed by George's honesty and evident sincerity. George got the job—in large part because of the attitude he took toward his depression.
WHAT LAWS PROTECT CONFIDENTIALITY?
To what extent is your privacy protected? What situations legally justify your therapist to release information about you?[[1]]
[[1]] Since the first edition of this book, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996, bringing with it a mass of complexities relating to patient privacy. There remain many still unsettled legal questions and issues relating to the so-called Privacy Rule, which there is not space here to discuss. If you wish to know more about the legal status and interpretation of patient privacy, see Wikipedia's article about HIPAA at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPAA.
These questions do not always have clear-cut answers. There may or may not be special laws in your state to protect the confidentiality of psychotherapy. The legal status of therapy is still ambiguous in many states. Even in those where laws have been passed, legal protection is sometimes not reliable unless your therapist is willing to face a jail sentence if need be to maintain the confidence you have entrusted in him. If you feel a situation is likely to arise that would put legal pressure on your therapist to release information about you (for example, in a child-custody hearing), you should ask your therapist what his or her commitments to confidentiality are.