Increasing client understanding
It seems that therapy is a response to distress in life. The
client comes with distress in living and hopes in relationship with their therapist
to improve things. This distress something might point at something specific or
be vague.
Therapy seems helpful in a few ways, one of which is that it
can increase a client’s understanding. This can be helpful as it can help them
to make different choices based on new information and to take a different
attitude to themselves, one of curiosity. It can also help both minimise the
problem and to offer solutions as it can break the problem down so that you can
see what keeps the problem going, where the problem developed and what the
effect of the problem is.
To increase understanding with a client then there seems a
variety of stages you need to go through.
1.
A loving relationship between therapist and
client
2.
Listening
3.
Exploring
a.
Focussing
b.
Enquiring
Loving relationship
The first stage seems a loving relationship. Being in a
loving\caring relationship then the client feels safe and can explore more
difficult areas in themselves, knowing they are safe if its uncomfortable when
they explore.
Indeed, if they don’t feel safe, part of their mind will be
involved in trying to protect themselves (possibly from the therapist), so they
will be less able to explore and understand.
The effects of being in a loving relationship for the client
seem to be that this can be a model of a relationship they can have to
themselves, they also experience being
valuable to another which can influence their self-esteem.
Listening
The next stage that follows is listening. Listening means
both to what is said, how it is said, and to the thoughts and emotions that it
generates in you. As you listen there can be different meanings that you may
hear, the content of the message of how the world is, the implied but unstated,
the purpose in stating the message, the way the message is delivered which adds
nuance and the context of the message, what was going on that drew these words
out.
With listening you can never be sure that you understood
what the client is saying. Indeed, as a client speaks I guess they are saying
many things, things they are aware of and things they are less aware of. As a
client speaks they are also listening with you for the first time to this thing
they are saying. So, the listening needs to be dialogic, with you checking you what
you have heard.
Listening can be difficult with the client talking quickly,
moving between subjects, making large statements. Thus you can get lost as you
are trying to understand what has just been said then the client can move
on. If you think out loud with the
client, ie verbalise your thoughts, then this can disturb the flow of your
client. It seems then that how you listen to the detail, to the overall sense
of what is being said, to the overall feeling of what is being said depends on
how your client talks. A client who talks quickly and doesn’t give you time to
reflect seems to invite this reflection, and seems to invite the listening to a
broader focus, to the activitiy that the speaking has, rather than its content,
for instance, ” It sounds like you are trying to work out all the problems that
you could be having.”
In the listening then you might want to start to have emerge
what it is that is therapeutically important for the client, what is it that
needs our attention, or what maybe do we learn as we try and work this.
The effects of this listening for a client seem to be a model for
their self relation, that can increase the depth of their listening to
themselves. They can also feel validated and valued that their being is worth listening
to which again can have an effect of their self-esteem.
Exploring
If an object of understanding emerges in the listening, then
we can explore it. This exploration has two axes, in time, or across time. I
have distinguished these two activities, focussing when we explore the object in
the present, and enquiring that explores the object through time.
Focussing
This is a phenomenological enquiry, that can gently start to
understand what this object is, this timid deer that shows itself. If the object of understanding is say
drinking too much, then we might ask what the experience of drinking is, what
is the too much of it. As we ask about experience we try to stay as much with
the sensation that is presented, in the body, the emotions, the thoughts and
behaviours. As the object emerges so we
might discern layers, as the first layer of phenomena show then it can in turn
point to another. Each layer gives us the foot hold to view something less
obvious.
As much as we can focus on phenomena of what shows itself,
what also seems significant is the context, the expectation of what should show
itself. So, in the case of drinking too
much, the sense of what I should be doing seems to inform this object, what
others might think, how I understand this behaviour as defining me, how I
engage in it, a hiding away or a reckless abandon
The effects of focussing can deepen the meaning of the
activity to the client, so for drinking too much that might start by an
understanding of I like it to in the face of anguish, I hide myself by drinking
such that I can’t feel my thoughts, or my body and I sleep. Again, in this
deepening of meaning this models a way the client can behave to themselves in
terms of exploration.
Enquiring
As we understand the presence of the object of understanding
then we can start understanding it by context.
The context is temporal: how can we understand more about how
this object began originally, i.e. onset, or happens, i.e. trigger. How can we
understand what the effects of the object are in the future? How can we
understand how this problem develops from trigger to highest point? What is the
helpful intention that this object has for you?
The effects are then to understand the component parts of
object, what builds it up which can reduce the scale of the problem, provide a
greater sense of agency and responsibility, first this happens, then that, then
that. In noticing the effects of the object
then this helps evaluate the object as you can see how the effects accord with
your values.
Conclusion
A client’s understanding of themselves seems far more
important than therapists understanding of their client. If a therapist has a greater understanding of
their client, well they might be wrong and if they give their understanding
fully formed to their client and treat on the basis of that then it leaves the
client with a demonstration of how they don’t know, how they need another to
explain themselves to themselves they are a stranger to themselves.
A client to increase their own understanding means they will
be more attached to it than if its given from someone else, and it also can
develop their way of being with themselves such that that way of being can be
re-used
