As the movie unfolds the horrors of this setup only become more vivid and elaborate. Because Mom hates children she prevents Precious from interacting with her first-born, a developmentally disabled boy named Mongoloid. They parade him out in front of the welfare representative once a month but other than that Precious is denied the maternal bond. Further, Precious is essentially booted from high school for being pregnant and before she begins her classes with Ms. Rain at an alternative school, school officials that show up at their door incite hysterical diatribes and beatings from Mom as she whips herself into a paranoid frenzy about welfare checks being stymied.

This is a recipe for hopelessness if ever there was one.

We can sense that these traumatic experiences and quickly-cementing obstacles are locking Precious into an incredibly burdensome and miserable life trajectory. But, wait, what is that...flying in to save the day...it's the therapeutic alliance as manifested by Ms. Rain, a pretty, hardworking and genuine teacher/mentor. What Ms. Rain does to slow down and eventually reverse the vicious cycle of low self-esteem-poor productivity-failure in which Precious is whirling is both subtle and profound. It also happens to parallel the common development of a successful therapeutic alliance, otherwise known as the relationship between therapist and client. There are many mechanisms that have been hypothesized to cure mental woes in therapy, ranging from Freud's fascination with self-insight to Beck's fondness for reframing self-defeating cognitions. However, the curative process that has received the greatest consensus within the clinical community and the most convincing empirical support is the therapeutic alliance. Think Matt Damon and Robin Williams in "Good Will Hunting." What started as screaming and staring contests ended with hugs and psychologically penetrating chants of "It's not your fault." Indeed, if the therapeutic alliance is a strong, positive and present force in therapy then people like Precious can change themselves, if not their suffocating circumstances. Before highlighting the ways in which Ms. Rain constructs an effective therapeutic alliance, I must discuss the underlying theory, that is, provide an explanation as to how Robin Williams took Matt Damon from point A to point B.

It goes something like this: "Man is born and everywhere he is in chains." No, that's not right. That's something else about government being bad. "Man is born and his "everywhere" is shaped by personality." Personality is the lens through which all is perceived. It can be thought of as the degree to which one fulfills one's capacity to be happy, productive, resilient and successful and all other things that are important. It underlies everything from our idiosyncratic preferences to our pressing internal drives. Specifically, four major pillars buttress personality - genes, temperament, environment and attachment style. The first two pillars are solidified before one has even exited the womb (sort of, anyway). The latter two can be seen as in-roads into the mind and, in turn, malleable sources of positive change and growth for a clinician. Ideally, as you age from infant to child your needs are responded to with celerity and consistency, your inner states (feelings, thoughts, etc.) are acknowledged and mirrored back to you in the actions and faces of your attachment figures. What is implicitly and explicitly learned in this attachment formation process is that you are worthy and lovable, that other people can be trusted and that the world is a safe and controllable place. Without these basic building blocks, vicious cycles of conflicting emotions, irrational cognitions and self-destructive tendencies are much more likely to develop. Exhibit A, Precious' mom.

The therapy relationship, in a nutshell, is a replacement attachment procedure. There are perhaps two steps to this process that facilitate an "out with the old, in with the new" learning experience: showing up and making the therapist-presence known.

Showing up as a therapist can be deceivingly difficult. By the time one enters therapy a poor attachment has cemented due to years of self-fulfilling prophecies (expect a certain response and you are likely to act in a manner that elicits that response). To whatever degree, a sense of mistrust, worthlessness, helplessness and hopelessness has been stitched into the fabric of the client's mind. This general psychological lens pervades every moment and is exceedingly difficult to capture and control because how one has always lived feels like the only way to live. As a result, the therapist will be expected to be mistrustful. So, when the therapist begins to disprove this maladaptive theory by guaranteeing time, effort and care no matter what then the client experiences a foreign way of being and relating that feels quite threatening. This discomfort, in turn, amps up the resistance (mistrust, fear, worthlessness, etc.) that must be anticipated and cushioned with calm curiosity by the therapist.

Making the therapist-presence known, as I call it, is the next step. Over time, exposure to that which is foreign and frightening leads to habituation - the vicious cycles fade away and the client becomes open to being helped. Quite naturally, meaningful help must now be provided. This involves the use of various therapy-related tools and principles designed to understand and treat the inner-workings of the client so as to meet confusion, ambivalence and anxiety with sound advice and comfort.

Observe Ms. Rain closely (seen above). She is more than just a charismatic teacher. In fact, she is the healthy attachment figure that Precious always deserved and never received. It started as a typical enough teacher-student dynamic. Ms. Rain established fair but high expectations for academic performance and then offered an admirable degree of time, patience and cheerleading to Precious in the service of this pursuit. With kindness and openness Ms. Rain validated all the ways in which doing homework and participating in class was painful and challenging for Precious - and then continued to push anyway. Think of this as the showing up phase.