One of the main reasons clients come to see us is that they’re stuck – in one way or another.
Maybe they’ve got limiting beliefs about what they can, or can’t, accomplish. Sometimes the fear of trying something new holds people back.
When a client is stuck, it’s often useful to consider how other practitioners have successfully helped their clients move forward.
In the video below, ten experts weigh in on why people get stuck, and how we can help them heal.
Take a look – it’s less than 4 minutes.
What techniques have you used in working with a client who was stuck? Please tell us about it in the comment section below.
I have found different techniques to be beneficial ranging from analysis to aid self-compassion and understanding, to using affect bridge techniques, somatic techniques/visualization to third person projection and inner child work. These measures are used to understand the resistance/stuck parts and then this is followed up by skill building and mindful practices or behavioral techniques (doing) to practice a different way of being. So I would agree with the summation the video offered. I think how this is practically implemented in session varies, as some clients benefit from intellectual departure points while others start off in emotional or behavioral spaces. So whether I offer skills, affect regulation techniques, or, psycho-education about neuroplasticity, for example; will alter which part of the process gets the initial focus. In essence it all feels like weaving to me and bringing things into a greater coherent whole, and its often not as linear as we would like it to be.
Education is warranted as I explain development. How our inner lights are thwarted after birth with conditions of worth placed on us by others and then explain this thwarted those inner lights because of our need to please others. I then use Hypnotherapy or guided imagery (if they are good at meditation it is easier) to help them access those inner lights by responding to the first thought without judgment. It is hard for some, easier for others, but helps them open up a window to their inner wisdom and begin to trust their inner world of joy perhaps for the first time.
After 40 years working with people in crisis… perhaps Jack comes closest to mentioning the core problem as ‘we are (and always act from) how we see ourselves’… but he does not explain how… that… If we want to do no harm we need to STOP perpetuating the definition of ‘I am how I’m treated’ (the esteemed ‘self’). That is, our treatments MUST STOP promoting avoidance or action for external (world or other) change – whether done internally (like reinforcing or avoiding feelings) or behaviourally (like having others recognise our feelings so they won’t push our buttons).
Meditation can only be the first step in providing the context to make the necessary shift in awareness/knowing (cognition). None of this is possible without knowing what our true self is… this must begin through a shift in our language about Self – to STOP promoting what it is NOT and to promote an understanding about what it is. When we can truly BE our real self all our emotional and behavioural problems become irrelevant.