Map Quest

One of the warning signs of self-alienation is when clients avoid answering his questions directly and frankly. Some use sarcasm as a way of deflecting attention from the real issues. Others simply dodge questions; when he suggested the name of a shadchan to one 25-year-old, the young man replied, “I don’t go to that one, he asks too many questions.”

“What was he afraid of?” Frank asks. “Why wouldn’t he want to answer questions about himself? Why wouldn’t he welcome the opportunity to let a shadchan know him? To me it’s obvious that he’s either got something to hide, or ‘nothing’ to hide.”

What’s Your Passion?

One of Rabbi Frank’s first inspirations in helping people get in touch with their true selves came out of an interview he took many years ago with the representative of an organization. He’d prepared for the interview, but one of the questions was a revelation. “He asked me, ‘What are you passionate about?’ I was a kiruv rav at the time, but I’d never thought about the idea of passion before, and certainly never articulated it.”

Those answers, he says, can only come out of self-knowledge, and only stated with certainty if they’re authentic. And so many of us don’t know what really excites us in life or what motivates us to get out of bed in the morning. We don’t know what our mission is and we lack the compelling “why” that drives us through the day. It became an important insight for Rabbi Frank’s therapeutic work: a lack of being in touch with oneself and one’s true path in life ultimately puts marriages, careers, and other relationships on the wrong track. The result may be depression, shalom bayis problems, or maladaptive behaviors like gambling or addictions. “You can’t reach your goal unless you know who you are, where you want to go, and how to get there,” he says.