This fellow sounds bright on the telephone, yet I sense that down deep he is really depressed.  His chart suggests a tremendous tension in relationships.  But I can't get past this or make specific inroads about what the difficulty might be.  What can I look forward to to help him?

The Sun-Moon blend in this horoscope promises lots of intelligence and innovation, keen communication, extreme people-sensitivity.  It's the intelligence best used for a social cause.  But there are some strong 'short-circuits' in development.

First, whenever the ruler of the Ascendant is retrograde or under heavy developmental tension, we can expect difficulty in identity development.  Here is such a case with the Ascendant ruled by Saturn retrograde.  To top it off, this Saturn is conjunct the Nodal Axis, suggesting a powerhouse mother who rules all, somehow by default from the father.  This would leave the man in limbo with regard to appropriate parental modeling and supportive, loving interaction in the early home.

This is reinforced by the fact that Pluto, ruling the parental 10th, is square to the Sun in the fourth!  Whenever Pluto is square, conjunct, or opposed the Sun, the open-sesame phrase for client discussions, "A pattern here in the horoscope suggests that there's a blanket over your hand-grenade!"  This sounds bizarre, but for people with this natal aspect, it is tremendously meaningful.  It saves a thousand words of discussion and it gets right into the salient issues. 

There is even further corroboration of all this through the Uranus opposition with the Moon and the Northern orientation of the horoscope, unfinished business in the early home.

The parental profile is a mess, and this is going to be projected, obviously, into relationships: the Moon, ruler of the 7th, is opposed by Uranus in the 7th; the Sun, co-ruler of the 7th is squared by Pluto in the 7th.

Then, there is Neptune squared to the Saturn-Nodal axis, suggesting the maternal influence is bizarre, strange to an extreme, and dominating.  Note that this Neptune rules the man's 2nd House, the House of self-worth.  So much anxiety must be taken on there through the parental situation, focused mainly on the mother, debilitating the self-worth profile.

Additionally, Ascendant=Venus/Saturn suggests a fear of not being accepted. Jupiter, ruler of the 11th, love received, hoped for, assumed, needed, is opposed by Pluto, and the need to feel lovable is jeopardized too.

This is a very difficult set of affairs that has to be explored in consultation, perhaps with a referral to a psychotherapist.

[In reality: the client was very talkative and, with keen intelligence, understood, indeed anticipated, the creative connections made in the cursory analysis.  The father and mother were extremely neurotic, the mother exceedingly hyperactive.  He was subjected to much verbal abuse from his parents. All of this was extended into his own personal relationships:  he said, "it's creepy how my fiancée reminds me of my mother, who has been the conductor of my life."

[The client had already enrolled in a support group -- the "Men's Council" -- working to 'heal wounds.'  In his career as an actor, he did brilliant work portraying someone else; in his private life he was totally dependent on parental molding or maternal surrogates.  His understanding of this and the Support Group discussions were the first major steps to recovery.]