03/17/2018
What I am reading... https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/1076/when-helping-doesnt-help
After a recently watching Anne Lamott's TED talk on "12 Truths I've learned from life & writing" (it's a really good one!), and then exploring with a client Lamott's statement that "helping is the sunny side of control," I began researching the detriments of "being helpful" in order to deepen my understanding of this idea. As you can imagine, therapists want to be helpful; but there are, in fact, those clients that just don't seem to want our help, or not in the aggressive way that a lot of "evidence-based practices" (like CBT) offer it.
This particular article focuses on the detriment of trying to be helpful in the therapeutic relationship. Enjoy!
Rather than just commiserating with clients’ misery, most therapists want to engage in more active forms of helping. So we try to persuade clients compassionately, gently, patiently—to make use of the various tools and techniques we know will work, if only they’d just try them. For some, this ...
