Best way to show gratitude?

[Bukem_]

I can't decide what to do here, hopefully you guys can help me out.

Starting around October 2003 I started seeing a shrink. I was feeling quite lost, had recently decided not to finish school with one semester left, had broken up with my long-term girlfriend, had little to no motivation to find a job, and was hiding my problems by spending a great deal of time playing computer games.

My life is a lot more balanced now, I have been working the last six months, and my social life is a lot more active. The psychiatrist I saw was very good, and played a large part in me turning things back around. I will be returning to finish school this coming semester.

From October-December, my mother made payments to him, at $215 a week for 2 sessions, or $860 a month. Around December she asked for itemized receipts for tax purposes I suppose. He said he would produce them, but never did. My mother stopped payments, and he never said anything.

I later learned that he had a few of his more "immobilized" patients on a very loose pay as you can go plan. I kept going to sessions until July, when I started working, and had conflicts in scheduling, and was also doing much better.

He is a very intelligent, very selfless man. I believe he actually had to step down from a position in a hospital 20 years ago. He had a conflict with a boss of his when he was trying to keep a very unstable patient of his under treatment, and his boss wanted to let the patient go for financial reasons. The psychiatrist stills see that patient to this day, and I have no doubt this man would be dead if it wasn't for him. Besides the time spent, the psychiatrist has probably given him more money than he has received over the 20+ years he has seen him. He has one, mabye two other people like this that he helps. I believe the rest of his patients all pay in full.

My question is how do I go about expressing gratitude to him for the help he gave me?

I probably paid him around $1000 out of my pocket for $6k-8k worth of treatment. I have around 8k saved up now (from being totally broke while I was seeing him).

I can't decide if I should sent him a check for a thousand, or send him a letter of gratitude, or something else. I have a have time putting a price of what he has done, since he isn't a very material person, and he helped me voluntarily.

I am under no obligation to pay him anything, and technically don't owe him anything.

Any suggestions?