When to Pull the Trigger
I realise that the title of today’s offering may create a certain image in some people’s minds, this is a subject near and dear to me, but it has nothing to do with guns. Having conducted over 32,000 clinical sessions I have learned much from my clients. The lesson I want to focus on today is that there is a time to confront the cause of a person’s problems and there is a time not to. You could be forgiven in thinking that as a person has presented for therapy that they are ready to confront what needs confronting. And whilst this is true to a point it is not absolute.
Something that has always concerned me about therapists who claim super quick fixes is that they do not take into consideration that an issue does not live in isolation. What I mean is, that issues can affect many aspects of a person’s life and to simply try to remove that issue may have serious repercussions to other aspects of the individual’s life. A skilled therapist, in my opinion, knows just when to pull the trigger as it were on assisting the client to face their issue in totality and work to alleviate it. Much therapeutic work revolves around preparing the ground for change and to help to create strategies to help a client move forward. It is important that a client never feels pushed in one direction or another and that they make their change at an appropriate time for them.
