Next comes the individual’s total situation.  This includes everything external to him that affects him or is affected by him.  It includes friends, pets, his job, house and car, the weather, bill collectors, and so on, until we have listed everything and everyone in his total situation.  This is his now.  It is his present, including people, relationships, things, circumstances, events, and so on.  The individual’s total situation also includes then and when.  Then is the individual’s past, and it shapes and affects the way things are now in his present.  It is important to see that when is not the future; rather it is the way the individual feels or thinks the future will be when certain things happen or do not happen, when he does or does not accomplish some goal, if circumstances change or do not change, and so on.  It is not how things actually will be, but rather, it is how the individual thinks things probably will be.

Of course, then and now are also, for the individual, a blend of actual events and circumstances, on the one hand, and his perception of those events and circumstances, on the other.  It is important to understand however, that when is an anticipated set of events and circumstances combined with the individual’s feelings and anxieties about those events and circumstances.  It is this anticipatory anxiety that gives when it’s special significance in crisis situations. …