Going to therapy while the world is on fire

Sarah Darghouth is a clinical psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School

“How are you?” my therapist asks as we start the session. A logical place to start — and a confounding question if the goal is to answer truthfully.

My answer varies based on how wide the aperture settings on my life are. When I look at it in its most narrow scope, my life feels good. When the aperture opens, though, I am in an unsteady state of oscillation between contentment and the Munch scream emoji that a friend sends me as a reaction to another headline.