Goal

The goal of this session is to enter into greater depth on a point that has come up indirectly in almost all the sessions: the need for regular habits. Although this point is of extraordinary importance, we do not spend more time on it because it is a vital part of the work of the individual clinician.

Procedure

• After the informal conversation, we can start the session by going through people's “fire extinguisher cards” and make the necessary corrections.

• We continue the session with the following story:

The story of a bet

Alan and Guy happened to meet at the mall. At first they hardly noticed each other because the Christmas shopping rush was on and the downtown area was crowded at seven in the evening. They were thrilled to run into each other, as they had been out of touch for several months. They sat down in a café. Alan ordered a soft drink and Guy ordered a regular coffee. They remembered when they first met, in a psychiatric ward to which Alan had been taken involuntarily in a manic, psychotic state while Guy was recovering from a severe depressive episode. They became good friends, possibly because they were the only bipolars on the ward. In a joking tone, some patients had started to call them “the one” and “the two” referring to their diagnostic subtype and an overheard conversation between a very young doctor and a veteran nurse. So Alan was “the one” and Guy was “the two.”