In their training, therapists learn that common sense is not always useful in counseling others. Human life is full of paradoxes and contradictions.

When someone comes into my consulting room for therapy, I’m on the alert for signs of the soul’s condition. I will hear many stories and some complaints about life, but I see my job as caring for the deep and usually hidden life of the soul. This orientation is essential. You can’t do real psychotherapy without it. Often what is called therapy looks more like life management than soul care. You can rearrange your life, but that is not the same as giving your deep soul what it needs and craves.

The therapist is seeing the situation differently, and that itself may be helpful. When therapist and client are not in the same narrative, there is space for change.

If I were going to help a company become more psychologically sophisticated, here are a few of the many issues I’d focus on:

1. Understand that abusive controlling leaders are usually secretly insecure and weak. If you don’t perceive this contradiction, your way of dealing with them may be ineffective.

1. Jealousy and envy are to be expected in hierarchical organizations. They are raw expressions of more basic desires. You may have to be patient with these symptoms. Don’t just try to get rid of them but help them ripen into more positive energies.

1. A person in authority may not deal with their position well because of bad experiences in the family and in childhood. You may need some empathic, deep discussions before you can work out solutions with them.

1. People tend to develop hostile feelings toward each other when they don’t have opportunities to really get acquainted. It’s too easy then to direct stray negative fantasies at fellow workers.

1. Conviviality can give the soul the security and deep satisfaction it craves. Gatherings where people can truly enjoy one another and daily breaks in a convivial atmosphere could help, not hurt, productivity.

1. Being critical and vocal about fellow workers may stem from insecurity, an overwhelming need to keep the job, or habits learned at home. A few lessons in dealing with insecurity would go a long way.

1. A business can’t provide deep therapy for all its workers, but it can create a work environment that is not emotionally toxic. A sensitive style of leadership especially can help create real community, which can tone down the negativity.

1. Therapy always begins with listening. Any business could create a structure in which just listening to workers’ issues could help with morale.

1. The physical environment can also soothe the soul: fresh air, plants and trees, water, a place to walk, a comfortable workstation, well-selected colors. Therapy often involves physical details; it is not just a mental activity.

1. Images affect the soul deeply. You can devote attention to the art images in the workplace or to any aspect of the place seen as an image. How do you feel in a medical center, waiting for your doctor, in a small room with no windows and perhaps plastic images of blocked arteries or diseased organs? Even a small degree of awareness could make the image environment supportive rather than destructive.

Therapy does not have to take the form of conversation. It may involve painting a house, building good transportation, inviting fresh and useful businesses to a region. In the little New England town where I live there is a small group of businesspeople who are concerned about the future of the region and do everything they can to provide attractive buildings and a good economy for all. They work hard to keep the international chain stores at a distance from the town center, so that they don’t quash local initiatives. They bury cables and raise money for improvements. They keep up the beautiful old buildings and demand strict codes for new ones. They are the town’s therapists, and they take their calling seriously. I talk to these people, who have skills that I lack. I encourage them and try to give them some philosophical underpinning for their good work. I’m their therapist.