Sometimes We Can’t Help
March 7th, 2007 | Email this to your FriendsWe are limited. We greet our clients with great hope. We have spent countless hours studying or trade, doing our own inner work, mastering our technique, and learning to “Be” with our clients. We have parts of ourselves that want to do good work. We are compelled to help others release burdens and cope with suffering because we know how good it feels to do so. Yet, there are times when we can’t. We believe a good therapist never gives up hope that a person can heal in this lifetime, but also recognizes that he or she may not be the one to help, that the time may not be right, the client not ready, and that, for whatever reason, one may never do the work we envision them doing. To do good therapy it helps to let go of expectations and outcomes for ourselves and for the people we work with; though without giving up.
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
[…] 8. Does the counselor make guarantees or promises? It’s important for a therapist to provide hope, but not absolute unconditional guarantees. Let me explain: What I often tell my clients is that if one has the will to change and puts in the necessary time and energy, healing is a possibility. I believe that most of our wounds and defenses are the result of what has happened to us and around us. I’m very confident that the work I do can help most anybody. And in my experience, healing happens very quickly in psychotherapy - but only after getting safely through the layers of defensive gate keepers, which can take a long time, and deservingly so. So, although everyone is capable of healing, changes can take years to happen for some people and, unfortunately because time is limited, one may never heal in this lifetime. Additionally, people are not always at a time and place in their growth in which they are ready to heal. Overall, there are numerous factors at play in the therapy process which may contribute to or interfere with healing and we can’t be conscious of all these variables. What this means is that there are no guarantees without conditions. So, beware of the therapist who guarantees or advertises a condition-less and absolute cure. Here is more info on how “Sometimes We Can’t Help.” […]