Well, this one was talkative, was he? Wilson fought the urge to sigh. At least with his own patients back at Princeton-Plainsboro, it hadn't been hard to get them to open up about what was wrong with them. But that was a physical illness, something that they had little reason to feel shame over. With mental patients, it was much more like pulling teeth, trying to get them to open up.

"I understand this is your first time here," he said as he cleared his throat, "so I just wanted to give you an idea of what this is all about. While I can't claim I'll be able to help you recover from your condition, I'm here to discuss with you anything that's bothering you or anything that's making you anxious -- anything you want to, really."

He didn't think it was going to be easy to get this patient started, but maybe they could find some topic that wasn't off-limits.