The New York Times tells us what a teenager really learned on the long drives to therapy.
Michael Parker writes (excerpt):
I don’t remember a thing about my psychiatrist except that he asked me questions, and as usual, my answers didn’t really match the things I felt. My father and I never spoke, to my knowledge, of whether these visits were doing me any good. What I remember is listening to the radio silently with him. Since there were so many of us, it was rare that I ever got to spend time with him alone. Perhaps there was something magical he could have said that would have allowed me to access my stunted emotional life, but now that I am the parent of a 15-year-old, I really rather doubt it. What he did was give up most of his single day off to ferry me 120 round-trip miles to get some help.