As psychotherapists, our patients share with us the joys and sorrows, pain and pettiness, betrayal and cruelty, the lies and misery in their lives and relationships. We listen carefully and empathically.

Between the lines of dialogue, however, therapists hover along a continuum of self-protection located between soul-sadness at one extreme, and a cool, isolated detachment at the other.

Natural disasters, genocide, suicide bombings, hostage executions or beheadings, and sick and starving children leap to our attention in the media. Our patients often mention these events, and...