• Not doing

• The social, economic and political context

• The personal context

• Beliefs and everyday Reality

• The Past does not cause the Present

• Changing the dance

• Self-destruction as a lifestyle

• Getting rid of bad habits?

• Authentic vs inauthentic relating

• Listening to people

• Conclusion

• Bibliography

What do I do when a client cuts themself? Asks me to do something and I feel I am being manipulated? Seems to self-destruct on the brink of success? Does something dramatic and I feel is only seeking attention? Asks for my advice and when I give it says that it is no good? Says ‘Yes, but’ to everything I say?

The short answer is to do … nothing. Helping clients who are ‘stuck’, who are in severe difficulty, who are called ‘difficult clients’ involves understanding what they mean, where they are coming from. It means seeing that all these so-called problems are merely the surface issues, symptoms of deeper relationship issues within the self. It means being able to see that the requests and gestures they make are merely the opening move in a sort of ‘chess game’ — what they say, what they ask and what they do are all communications pointing to something deeper in their life that they may only be aware of in a fleeting way. It is the therapist’s job to ‘amplify’ the real issues beneath the words so that the client becomes aware of them and has the choice as to whether they will face them or not. Doing nothing, of course, doesn’t mean literally doing nothing. It means doing nothing in the Zen sense — a ‘not doing’. Of course you will be ‘doing’ something, but it will be more an inward doing – "being" rather than an outward "doing" in action. You will be doing something about the issues at the core of the client’s life and as a result of that, all the surface issues that the client has raised will be ‘solved’ as a matter of course, without even concentrating on them.

OK, so why are there so many of these surface issues with clients in difficulty? Why do they ‘self-destruct, ‘self-mutilate’, ‘manipulate’, say one thing and mean the other, act ‘irresponsibly’, blame every one else etc? The answer to this is blindingly obvious. They do these things for the same reasons we all do. Every single one of us has acted in all these ways so each of us has access to the reasons why these behaviours are all universal human behaviours. There are personal reasons to do with each individual’s unique history and there are the beliefs and attitudes of the prevailing society we live in as to why these behaviours exist.

We live in a completely materialist society that has lost touch with any genuine sense of spirituality. The three pillars of society — science, religion and psychology — all believe that we live in an unsafe universe. Science says that life is a struggle — the survival of the fittest, that reality is made up of matter exclusively and that there is no inward dimension whatsover. Christianity says that we are all fatally flawed with original sin and that talk of an inward dimension (where we could all contact each other or ‘God’) is ‘gnostic heresy’. Psychology says that we are egos trapped inside our skulls and any inward dimension is actually merely the unconscious, a repository of savage impulses that the ego must tame and watch over. The idea of an inward dimension, a DreamTime, where we can connect with each other, a tree or a sunset, feel safe and secure and where we gain a sense of meaning in life is scorned by all three foundations of our society. In such a universe, as Sartre said, the basic feeling of life is one of ‘Nausea’, that deep down feeling of terror we get when we think that we are born, we live, we die, lights out, kaput, it’s all over. The utter meaninglessness of existentialism.

In this environment the saying, ‘That’s business’ speaks volumes. It means that anything goes as long as you don’t get caught. Our society talks about values such as truth, honesty, family etc while doing the opposite. It talks about peace while waging war. It is utterly hypocritical, and we all know it, but don’t know what to do about it. The official unemployment rate is 6% but we all know that it is probably three times that. Society pretends that this isn’t a problem really because it will all be fixed, ‘when the recovery comes’. We condemn a huge proportion of our young people and people over 40 to a life without work, while extolling the virtues of work. Work provides a structure for our lives, it fills in the time, provides meaning for people. We pretend that unemployment is a problem of not having enough money when it is really a problem of ‘what do I do with all this time on my hands’, ‘how do I fulfil myself in a life without work’. We ignore the hopelessness and despair that comes with being cut off from work, which has been the way for people to find meaning in life and make friends. We treat it as purely temporary rather than face it head on and deal with the real issue — if work is no longer available to a lot of people, how do we propose that those people find meaning in life, get a sense of achievement and fulfilment and fill in all that time from when they wake up to when they go to sleep. Our only solution — get some voluntary work, play a sport, get a job, keep trying etc. We refuse to face the fact that ‘full employment’ is a thing of the past, not because society has failed in some way, but because it has been successful in eliminating a lot of mind-numbing, repetitive jobs. Is it really such a surprise that there are people out there who are filled with resentment and bitterness at being left out, left behind, forgotten? Is it really surprising that some of these people explode in ‘mindless acts of vandalism’ or other anti-social activities? What do we expect these people to do? Simply sit on the dole quietly and passively and be nice people and not rock the boat for those of us lucky enough to have a job and live the good life? Why should these people have ‘respect for the law’ when society has decided that they are the necessary sacrifice that has to be made for the benefit of the employed?

RD Laing has another wonderful revealing metaphor about modern society. He likens us all to people who go into a restaurant, sit down, look at the menu, then cut it up with a knife and fork, eat it and what’s more, tragically, leave the restaurant satisfied with our ‘meal’. He says that we have confused the menu with the meal, the map with the terrain. We live in an utterly hypocritical society that preaches values of honesty, directness, responsibility etc while politicians, business and unions lie through their teeth, manipulate, steal, cheat and blame all day long and we then point the finger at the most disadvantaged members of society — those with mental health and emotional problems, and demand honesty, directness and responsible behaviour. Our health and welfare systems along with the other societal institutions like energy generation, water supply, education are all falling down around us while those in charge talk about ‘world’s best practice’! We all know that if a politician decided to ‘tell it like it is’ he or she wouldn’t have a hope in hell of being elected. We simply don’t want to know. Steve Waugh puts it succinctly, "It’s easy to talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?" When Malcolm Fraser said that ‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy’ he was pilloried from one end of the country to the other, but everyone knows in their bones that he was absolutely correct. It’s just that we are not allowed to admit this. As Sartre said, ‘People want to believe that life is either impossible or easy but not that a good life is both difficult and possible’.

But maybe what Fraser said reveals another value of modern society that we don’t want to know about, that we want to keep hidden. When he said ‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy’, maybe everyone took offence because he was a rich and powerful man, therefore life should have been easy for him! We assume that if people have a lot of money and/or power, then they should be happy and life should be easy. If it became common knowledge that money, a job, a house, a car, the ability to consume more and more had nothing whatsoever to do with fulfilment and creativity, the whole foundation of modern society would collapse. The opening words of M Scott Peck’s ‘The Road Less Travelled’ are ‘Life is difficult’. This book by Peck is about the only self-help book amongst millions which ‘tells it like it is’. He says life is difficult and full of pain for all of us but once you know this it is a ‘piece of cake’. Other self-help books imply that life is easy and that if you follow the book’s simple prescriptions, you will create what you want. Our society is hopelessly out of touch with any real values about life. It’s definition of health is all to do with being able to go back to work! Is it any wonder that there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who simply cannot fit in to this society, who feel that they are different, who feel alienated, ‘from another planet’, all the while being told that they are the problem, that there is something wrong with them?

‘Difficult clients’ know inside that there is something wrong with society and hearing this confirmed by the counsellor can lift a huge weight off their shoulders. It means that there isn’t anything wrong with them personally if they cannot fit in. They feel relieved of a burden and suddenly have more hope and energy available to tackle the issues facing them in life. Yes, society is decaying, it is full of dishonesty and hypocrisy, it isn’t me that is the problem. Yet I am stuck within this society so I had better make a go of it. One can feel alienated and alone and an outsider and still live a fulfilling and satisfying life. Such clients have told me years later that they feel as though they are the truly healthy ones, that anyone who is happily adjusted to this society and its values are actually very unhealthy people. Similar to the person who said that any German concentration camp guard who got through the war unscathed, seemingly healthy, was a very sick person! We live in a sick, insane society — in such a society this sickness is manifested in ‘sick’ people and ‘sick’ relationships.

Imagine the following situation. It is lunchtime in the staff room and a friend/work mate is discussing his recent application for a senior position. He says that he doesn’t know why he is applying because they won’t give him the job because he isn’t qualified enough or he hasn’t been in the service long enough etc. One of his mates says that of course he can do the job because he is a good worker, and another colleague says that he will be better than the other people who are seniors. If this worker continues to express doubts about himself, his mates will continue to encourage him. Why do we say, "I probably won’t get the job" when we have already applied for it? Because we may have personal doubts about ourselves, or we may simply not want to appear too confident in front of other people in case they think we are showing off. If, however, he says that he is going to get the job, that the other five applicants haven’t got a chance because he is just so good, his colleagues will respond by dampening down his claims — "I wouldn’t be so confident, you never know what can happen" or "They probably have someone already chosen". When someone expresses such confidence in themself, why do the rest of us tend to try and bring that person down to earth a bit? Why indeed? Why do some Australians tend to say ‘Not bad’ when asked ‘How are you?’ If all of us tend to express self-doubt even when we may not have any self-doubt is it any wonder why so-called difficult clients have extreme self-doubt — they probably do have little reason to be confident of anything good happening.

In conducting our relationships, all of us seem to dance to a common score — if one person puts themself down, others will build him up. If one person tends to boast, others will bring him down to earth. This is the nature of human interactions and exemplifies the complementarity in relationships.

If a friend of yours said that they were going for promotion and thought that they wouldn’t get it because they weren’t good enough, and you responded by saying, "You’re right, you’ve never shown any leadership abilities. I think you should stay at base grade. It’s all you are really capable of", your friend would probably say to you, "You’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to encourage me". Such a response is called paradoxical (Greek ‘para’ ‘doxos’ — to stand beside) because it is such a ‘shocking’ statement that it highlights the original statement and makes it stand out. This means that the person to whom a paradoxical statement is made becomes more aware of what they said — their own statement is amplified and this process serves to make them more aware of themselves and how ‘silly’ or ‘true’ their own statement really is. Such a paradoxical response only goes to show even more the complementarity in relationships.

Imagine another scenario. You are with your partner and about to go out for dinner. She says that she is feeling fat and unattractive. You respond with something like, "You don’t look fat to me" or "You look fine" etc. She says, "No, my clothes don’t fit me properly" and you say, "You’re fine as you are, don’t be silly". After a couple more ‘rounds’ of this complementary dance, you suddenly realise what is going on, gather yourself, and, in really intending to touch her inwardly, say to her, "I love you as much as I ever did. You are just as beautiful as you ever were". This response strikes a chord in her and she stops her disparaging remarks about herself.

This example demonstrates the difference between making an inner and outer connection. When she said that she was feeling fat and unattractive, and you replied by saying that she looked fine etc, you were responding to the content of her message in an outward way with words. That is, "Am I fat or not?" "No you are not". When, however, you really intended to make contact with her, and said that you loved her as much as you ever did, you were responding to her process, her search for inner connectedness, rather than the content. When people throw out comments that they feel overweight or look unattractive or don’t know whether they should apply for a job, they aren’t really asking you to comment on the ‘truth’ value of what is said — the content. They are really asking you for inner connectedness, to confirm for them that they are OK or lovable people — the process. When we express such disparaging remarks we are going through self-doubt. We express that self-doubt in a particular way (am I too fat?), but all we really want is to make inner connection. " I want to touch you, reach you inwardly. You are an OK person and I love you".

Why do we ask someone else whether we are ‘going to get the job’ or whether we are overweight? Don’t we know ourselves? The reason has to do with our beliefs about ourselves. All of us doubt ourselves at times. Most of us have negative beliefs about ourselves in some areas. These deep-seated negative beliefs involve our ideas about our essential self-worth, whether we are good or bad people, worthy or unworthy, lovable or unlovable, powerful or impotent etc. These beliefs are in a sense ‘unconscious’. We have thought them so many times since childhood that they have become habits — habits of mind. We are not really aware that we believe them any more. They seem to be facts of our reality not feelings about it.

They manifest in everyday situations such as feeling uncomfortable about our appearance, abilities, characteristics etc. For example, if you decide to go for a senior position and you have a belief that you are an unworthy person, then on the surface you will be constantly assailed by doubts as to whether you can do the job. You will seek reassurance from others without actually realizing where the doubt comes from. If you believe that you aren’t a very nice person and you decide to go out to dinner, you might reflect on how people will see you in public and your belief might manifest itself in worrying about your shape and whether you will be acceptable to others. But no matter how much the surface issues seem to be dealt with (Yes, you are attractive; Yes, you can be a senior), each person is left with nagging doubts about their self-worth because the deep-seated beliefs are not dealt with when we are reassured about the surface issues.

The problem with a negative belief is that no one else can talk you out of it. If you believe that you are not worthy of being in a leadership position, or if you believe that you are unattractive, it doesn’t matter what anyone else tells you, you will continue to believe this. The only person who can change a belief of yours is you. That is why all of us continue to ‘set’ people up with the same questions over and over again. If you say that you are too fat, and I say that you look great as you are, you might feel better for awhile, but then your own belief takes over once more, and you need to get outside confirmation again that you aren’t fat. Our own deep-seated negative beliefs about ourselves cause us to feel insecure at times. In needing to feel secure again, we seek outside confirmation that we aren’t as we fear. When we get it, we feel temporary relief until our beliefs are triggered again by another everyday event.

If this is normal, everyday, civilised behaviour that we all take part in, is it any wonder that people in difficulty show these same behaviours in an extreme way, constantly telling you that they are hopeless and useless and that no one cares about them. And just as with us, telling them that they are OK and worthwhile people won’t do a bit of good. Only by feeling inwardly connected with themself will the gnawing doubts slowly be resolved. Only by connecting deeply with yourself as a counsellor can you connect a client to themself. Knowing inside you that everyone is worthwhile and this client in particular is and actively ‘radiating’ this with your whole face and eyes, demeanour and manner while ‘not doing’, not actually responding to what they say is a far more authentic and therapeutic response than merely countering their negative comments with your positive ones. Sometimes a completely paradoxical response can be effective, but only if the therapist actually feels a deep inner feeling about the other person in a paradoxical way and then puts it into words. If a paradoxical response is said in a strategic way, merely as a technique, don’t be surprised if it proves to be ineffective in the longer term.

No one can talk you out of a negative belief. We all know this, yet we keep trying. But the other side of this is that no one can talk you into negative beliefs. Often abused people feel stuck because they believe that their parents caused them to be how they are NOW. But no one causes us to believe what we believe and it is our beliefs that rule our lives NOW. Our parents may have been able to control our behaviour when we were young and ‘make’ us act in certain ways because of their power. But they cannot make us believe that we are bad people or any of a million other negative beliefs. As Sartre pointed out, even if we are lined up against a wall to be shot, we are free to die in our own ways (meaning free to construct the meaning of the situation). One man may beg for mercy, one may cry and say it isn’t fair, another may grit his teeth and say nothing, and another may realise that it is his time to die and ‘take it like a man’. The Soviet Union was a dictatorship for 70 years, the people constantly being told what to believe over and over again, with dire consequences for those who believed differently. But in the end, that system was swept away because people were only pretending to believe what they were told in order to survive. The strength of ‘democracy’ is that the system relies on us believing what we want. It takes that into account and accommodates it. It knows that it cannot make us all believe what it wants. It just relies on us living by consensus and majority decision. We are all free to believe what we want. The situation we are in may be heavily leaning towards us adopting certain beliefs, but ultimately we choose what to believe in freedom. Our parents may have caused us to act in certain ways, but we adopted the beliefs that we did, and these beliefs are what dominate our adult lives. In that sense the past is not causing the present. The present is as a result of the beliefs that we freely adopted.

All of us act ‘indirectly’ at times in ways that are not strictly authentic. But it is accepted social behaviour for everyone and in the main does not stop us from achieving what we want out of life.

Clients with severe emotional difficulties, however, act in this way almost exclusively. And if they do not stop acting this way, they will never achieve what they want out of life. The problem is that they act this way out of habit because of the beliefs they adopted in order to survive childhood. They may never have had any real inner connectedness as a child and may be suffering from ‘contact starvation’ (Wilberg). This will be manifested in extreme self-doubt. Clients in difficulty have such negative and self-destructive beliefs that they are constantly assailed by self-doubt. They fear that they are bad people, unlovable and unworthy. They constantly seek reassurance that they are good, lovable and worthy individuals and they do this just as we do, by ‘setting up’ others to tell them that they are OK. This can then become a habit. That is, clients feel compelled to always put themselves down and say that life is hopeless, so that the other person feels compelled to say ‘nice things’ to them. Like all of us, they have forgotten that they are seeking meaning and a deep inner sense of connectedness to themself and other people. They think they are looking for people to be nice to them, to feel sorry for them or say positive things to them.

So-called difficult clients set up relationships with people including workers that tend to result in themselves being disempowered and other people feeling frustrated and angry because nothing ever changes. Only when the clients themselves begin to take responsibility for their own lives will anything change. Therapists can help in this process but only by changing their own instinctive ways of responding. We can trigger clients to think in new ways only by thinking in new ways ourselves. We can trigger clients to act in new ways but only by acting in new ways ourselves.

Like us, these clients’ negative beliefs are triggered by everyday events and as a result they feel insecure and unsafe. They then try to act in such a way to feel safe and secure, by manifesting surface complaints and issues for workers to propose solutions to and fix. That is, the client may ask you where they can go to meet people. If you focus on the content and say a or b, this will not satisfy the client. Because, like us, they are not really asking you about where to meet people, although they might think they are. What they want is to make an inner connection to you, to feel that they mean something to you, and so they engage you in a dialogue about where to go. If you say, "Why not do a WEA course" they will feel let down internally because it isn’t what they want (a sense of internal connectedness) so they will reply, "That’s no good, I can’t afford to pay". If you say, "Then try and save some money", the client will tell you how they can’t do so, and the frustrating ‘dance’ continues. As Peter Wilberg says, people are involved in a Quest to Relate, not a surface relating but a deep inner relatedness. When a client asks you where they can go to meet people, they really want to meet with you right then and there. If you can do that in an authentic way it will not matter what words you happen to say. The client will feel (ful)filled up!

In short, we must stop ‘playing’ the role of the competent worker who knows what is best for the client, who gives advice and fixes problems — who basically attempts to meet the needs of clients. Instead we must essentially learn to focus on forming a sense of inner connectedness with the client, helping them to be in touch with themselves, to be with the client completely, ‘not doing’, doing nothing if you want to call it that. Essentially, it is about hearing the client. Hearing not helping is what clients want.

Clients who have longstanding emotional difficulties usually have very negative belief systems. Mostly, they have been through some form of severe abuse as children. In the beginning they had the victim status forced on them and in the end, they adopted this role and learnt to make it work for them, ensuring their survival. They are ‘pessimists’ constantly expecting the worst, as this protection mechanism enables them to always be on guard against those people who are ‘out to get them’. Such clients learn to use their status as ‘victims’ in order to get what they want.

As children, such clients were often blamed for everything and never learnt the difference between responsibility and blame. In being blamed for things they didn’t do, and being unable to work out why they were being punished for other things, the result was that they made a pact at some time in their lives, that, "No one is ever going to blame me again." But in doing so, ‘the baby is thrown out with the bath water’ — in never accepting blame, they find it hard to distinguish between blame and responsibility. Like Basil Fawlty, they seem to go to extreme lengths to avoid responsibility because they see it as potentially being blamed for something. A person who finds it hard to accept responsibility is a person who feels that they are always having things done to them, and they tend to ‘blame’ others for doing these things to them. They feel that they are always the victim of other peoples’ bad intentions.

Such clients can easily feel that life is unfair to them, just like all of us (‘No one cares about me!") and all too easily adopt a ‘Poor me’ attitude, which almost demands that others feel sorry for them. They act as if the world owes them something and if it isn’t going to pay up, they will destroy themselves and the world will feel guilty! This mechanism is a version of the child saying to mother in a rage, "I’m going to go to my room and I’m not going to eat!" The child believes that mother will feel guilty because the child will ‘starve’ in their room. However, mother knows that the child is playing the ‘burning martyr’ and will sneak out of their room to get some food later. But the child really does believe that the parent is feeling this guilt, so this behaviour is reinforced and continues to be the way this person will express their anger throughout life. In other words, people who feel as though they are the victim do not embody their anger directly because it is too scary to do so, not because they are mad, bad, sick, stupid, crazy or disordered. They cannot get other people to change their behaviour through simply being angry because when they tried this as children, they were abused. So they try to get people who they are angry at to change their behaviour by attempting to make them feel guilty by hurting themselves. In other words, they adopt self-destructive behaviours as a way of expressing their anger in order to change someone else’s behaviour for exactly the same reason everyone does when they get angry at other people. When they self-destruct, they expect others to feel guilty for being uncaring people and respond by changing their behaviour. When you feel guilt you usually act to remove the guilt. That is the aim of destroying yourself, to get the other person to change their behaviour.

Like all individuals they want to be in control of their reality. But if they conduct the relationship by putting themselves one down and you one up, the only way they can take control is by sabotaging whatever you try to do for them. That is, if you advise such a client to do such and such, they will sabotage this just so they can be in control. ‘That’s another useless counsellor who has failed me’. That is, they can only gain control by proving you wrong.

Acting self-destructively in order to be in control is something familiar to us all. For example, how many people have tried to give up smoking or drinking or eating etc., have been successful for a few weeks and then ‘cracked’ and had one cigarette or one beer or one cake etc. How many people have then said to themselves, "Oh, bugger it, I’ve blown it. I may as well go back to smoking or drinking etc". That is, having failed to give up smoking completely, you believe that you are ‘out of control’ and in order to get back in control, you decide to go back to smoking, which is an act of self-destruction. You are back in control because you have chosen it. (You could have decided to have that one cigarette and then give up again, but your own distorted beliefs of what is perfect and what isn’t prevent you from choosing this option.) The client who is stuck who believes that the counsellor is a better person than they are could try to change that belief, but instead they control that person by proving them wrong, and self destructing.

Another common example of destroying something in order to gain control happens when a friend of yours decides to give up smoking or drinking etc. At some stage you might encourage your friend to have just one drink or smoke. We do these things in order to feel in control, because we feel threatened by their behaviour. If someone else is able to give up smoking, often we can feel out of control because they are exhibiting such strong will power and determination. We gain control by sabotaging their progress. "Aah, everything is fine now, they are smoking again. They are as weak as I am."

It is commonplace when working with clients in difficulty that they have ‘bad’ habits and that they think they should give them up. These bad habits can include self-mutilation, smoking cigarettes, using drugs, alcohol abuse, infidelity, taking overdoses of prescribed medication, driving too fast, breaking the law, living in an abusive relationship and many more. It seems to be a shared belief between most clients and therapists that everyone would be better off if these bad habits were dropped. Yet a moment’s thought will reveal that this commonly accepted maxim is simply counterproductive. RD Laing tells another story about how the process of growing up can be likened to committing the perfect crime. A young child is upset by the level of conflict between his parents. He determines to do something about this, so he goes to the local shop and tries to steal something in plain view of the owner. The police are called and they take the young boy home. Mum and dad are horrified that their son is in trouble and stop fighting to focus on him. The young boy has learnt how to stop the conflict — get in trouble and make himself the focus of attention. By the time this boy is an adolescent, he will be stealing more and more and becoming a tearaway, but he is no longer quite as aware of why he is doing this. By the time he is an adult, he is simply a petty criminal who steals because ‘that is what I do’. It has become a perfect crime. Laing puts it this way. In the beginning a child finds a bizarre way of resolving problems, by the time he is an adolescent he has forgotten what he is doing, and by the time he is an adult he has forgotten that he has forgotten, with the result that it is a perfect crime.

Bad habits are only bad when we ignore the context. If you are walking down the street and you hear a car backfire and you see a man in front of you dive to the ground and come up with a pretend machine gun ready to defend himself, you may at first think he is mad. But if you subsequently find out that he is a Vietnam Veteran, all his behaviour suddenly makes perfect sense. So it is with all bad habits. They are all solutions to problems themselves, not problems in themselves. They are solutions that may have their own unpleasant side effects, but they still work. That is why we find it so hard to give up bad habits, because they work for us. People who self-mutilate report that they feel a sense of relief as the warm blood flows. Some cut themselves and open the wound up to look inside — literally to look inside themselves. One young man I saw said that when he looked in the mirror he saw only deadness in his eyes. He would then cut himself in order to feel alive. When I was young myself, I used to go to Indian restaurants and eat the hottest food imaginable, even though it was sometimes an ordeal, I knew that I was alive.

All of us have bad habits, and we have them not because we are mad, bad, sick, stupid or crazy but because at one stage in our life, we were confronted with something and we made a choice about how we would act. This choice was equivalent to ‘Sophie’s Choice’ but it was still a choice, and it was also the best thing that we could come up with at the time. If it worked for us, then of course we would do it again and again. The police recommend that if you are being raped, not to fight back but lie there and ‘take it’. If you are confronted by a robber, give them what they want. Do not fight back. Isn’t this a bad habit to be advising people to get into? Of course, but it will keep you alive.

Many people have asked me to help them give up marijuana smoking. They say it makes them tired and lethargic, or it costs too much, it ruins their memory, or it makes them eat too much or any of a thousand other side effects. The way they present it, you could be forgiven for thinking that marijuana was all-bad and therefore should be easy to give up. However, later on in the conversation, I have asked many of these people just what they like about smoking dope and they reply that it makes them relax, that they have ‘cosmic’ thoughts, that listening to music is ‘out of this world’, that it makes their depression go away for a little. If I ask them then and there do they want to give up those aspects of dope smoking, of course they are ambivalent. Who wouldn’t be? When we say that we want to give up a bad habit, we mean that we want to get rid of the negative aspects of it, we have taken the positives we get out of it for granted and forgotten them. Many doctors smoke cigarettes and they of all people know that they are ‘bad’ for them. Why do they smoke? Because cigarettes are a great stress management technique, possibly one of the best. The example of doctors smoking should teach us that trying to give up ‘bad’ habits because they are ‘bad’ for us is simply not going to work. We cannot scare ourselves into giving up ‘bad’ habits because they are unhealthy. If researchers suddenly discovered that sexual intercourse was bad for the skin of the penis and the vagina by the time you got to be in your late 90s, and that we should therefore refrain from sex because it was ‘bad’ for us, we would all ‘take the risk’.

No, we won’t give up ‘bad’ habits because they are unhealthy. We will only give up bad habits when we understand their positive role in our life and why we chose them in the first place. Then we may be able to give them up as long as we can substitute something ‘healthier’ in their place that works.

Lastly, it should be remembered that ‘bad’ habits are not the problem, they are the attempted solution by the client or the symptom of the problem. Getting stuck on trying to help a client give up bad habits will only distract from the real problem, the client’s relationship with you, themself and other people. If there is a shift in their relatedness this will be reflected in their so-called bad habits. They will disappear, lessen or remain the same, but that will be the client’s choice.

How do I know when to take a client literally? If a client says they are feeling like hurting themself and I have to come and visit them or I have to fix up their Centrelink payment how do I know when to do what they ask or ‘not do’ and get them to do it? That is, how do I tell when a request is authentic or they are just trying to ‘manipulate’ me?

You can tell if a request is authentic by sensing whether the client is authentic. What is authenticity? What is one doing when one is inauthentic? You are authentic when you are coming from that true place inside you that enables you to feel that you are fully being yourself. It is when you are actively and fully embodying who you feel yourself to be ‘on the inside’, that you are not holding back or dissembling etc. When you are authentic, you feel as though you are fulfilling your deepest values, in touch with the inner being, the author of your life. What you say, the looks on your face, the tone of your voice, the look in your eye will all be ‘congruent’ or resonant. Consequently when you are disconnected from yourself, when you feel out of touch with your insides, when you don’t feel yourself, you are then unable to embody fully who you are. When you are inauthentic, you feel as though you aren’t fulfilling yourself, you are out of touch with the inner being, the author of your life. You feel that you simply can’t be ‘straight’ with people, you must be ‘indirect’ or ‘manipulate’ people into doing what you want for in that moment, being direct is simply too painful, too difficult to bear. What you say, the looks on your face, the tone of your voice, the look in your eye will be incongruent or dissonant. When you are with someone, if you resonate with them, you will know if they are being authentic. If they are being authentic, everything will ‘sound right’, ‘look’ right and feel right to your inner ‘radar’ and ‘sonar’. If they are not connected with themself, they will come across inauthentically — that is, things won’t sound right, look right or feel right. They will sound hollow or empty, look ‘out of place’ and feel ‘flat’ etc. Without knowing it, a human being always reveals their authenticity or inauthenticity, we are always revealing or manifesting our inner ‘feeling states’. We cannot do otherwise. If a client rings you and wants to get out of an appointment but does not feel able to tell you directly, their inability to do this will be manifest in the tone of their voice. If you are listening to them in a fully embodied way, rather than just hearing the words, you will pick up the dissonance — it simply won’t feel right to you ‘in your guts’.

If you have determined that a client is ‘trying it on’ how do you act therapeutically so that you don’t simply do what is asked of you? So that the client does more and you do less? By using the principle of complementarity in human relationships to work for you. If a friend of yours said that they were going for promotion and thought that they wouldn’t get it because they weren’t good enough, and you responded by saying, "You’re right, you’ve never shown any leadership abilities. I think you should stay at base grade. It’s all you are really capable of", your friend would be brought up short by your answer. It would force them to think about what they said and how you answered and they would probably say to you, "You’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to encourage me". In other words, when your friend put himself down, he wanted you to say something like, "You’ll get it, don’t worry", he was not seriously asking you whether he should get it or would get it.

If a client says to you, "I’m useless aren’t I" you are supposed to say, "No, you’re not, you’re a good person" or something like that. But if you sense that deep down they actually do have some faith in themself, that they are cut off from themself and are being inauthentic in that moment, you could decide to respond ‘paradoxically’. If you were to say, "Probably" or "Yes, it seems that way", the client might feel compelled to ‘flip’ and say, like your friend, "You’re not supposed to say that" or "Well, that’s not fair, I’m not completely useless. I did go to a job interview the other day".

Whenever a client is being inauthentic, COMPLEMENTARITY RULES OK? If a client says to you that they are stuck in a pattern of overdosing whenever they get stressed and going to hospital and being discharged etc. and say that they want help, you are supposed to suggest to them things they could do instead of overdosing, like ringing ACIS or talking to someone etc. But if you sense that deep down, that client does know what to do when they are feeling bad, you might say something like, "Maybe being looked after is the best thing for you. I could arrange for you to live in a hostel, and have your affairs taken over by the State, and you can live without any responsibilities at all. Of course, you’ll have to give up your freedom but that is a small price to pay for having no responsibilities". Such a paradoxical response almost compels the client to argue the opposite case, that they value their freedom and don’t want to be looked after.

These paradoxical responses have the effect of ‘amplifying’ or magnifying the internal feeling state that the client is only fleetingly aware of if at all. When a client says, "I’m useless, aren’t I" and you feel that they don’t really believe this at that moment, then you can resonate with that small part of them that does believe in themself, you can radiate this with your whole being and demeanour. Your paradoxical response that they probably are useless, then ‘gets to’ the client, it makes them feel the reality of what they said to you and they connect more with the part of them that is a little competent and worthwhile. If what you say comes from that space in which you feel their worth, then that sense of worth will be magnified in that moment. If what you say is a technique and unconnected to any genuine feeling of the client’s worth, it probably won’t have any effect, or worse, the client will pick up your dissonance and unauthenticity, and feel ‘manipulated’ in a way by you.

Silence is also a way of responding so that whatever the client says is amplified in that moment. For example, if a client comes to see you and says that they don’t know why they are there, you are supposed to suggest reasons why they have come and then propose solutions to their problems. If you remain silent, the client will feel under pressure to respond to his or her own words. As we all know, when there is a pregnant pause or silence, we all feel pressure to talk. If the client asks a question or makes a statement that isn’t really authentic and is met by silence, they often answer their own question or statement. He or she may say something like, "Maybe I can talk about the fight I had with …" Of course, there is silence and there is silence. You can respond silently in a completely empty way or a completely full way. Responding silently in a full way is when you know, sense and feel that the client does know why they are there.

The advantage of responding in a paradoxical or complementary way is that if the client does not ‘flip’ almost immediately, then that person isn’t being simply inauthentic at that moment. They could be psychotic or severely depressed and should be treated as such. You may be having an off day and ‘read’ them wrong. For example, if a client said to you that they felt hopeless and useless and you agreed with them that it certainly looked that way and the client did not ‘flip’ and immediately begin to argue that it wasn’t that bad, indeed that they felt even worse, then you would immediately move into protective mode as if the person was psychotic or extremely depressed. In this moment what the client said was not inauthentic, but an accurate and authentic representation of their feeling state.

Freud challenged the first great taboo in the late nineteenth century, the taboo against speaking about the ‘s’ word — sexuality. But, as Peter Wilberg maintains, today there is a new taboo, the taboo against speaking about the other ‘s’ words — soul , spirit and silence — and what he calls ‘core connectedness’. We live in a soul-less society with a ‘health’ system completely devoid of soul and spirit, a system that tries to do its best while regarding people as only sophisticated machines. In my own experience many colleagues of mine are spiritual people but they would not dare ‘use’ any of these beliefs in their work with clients. It is as if to be taken seriously as a rational, intelligent person one must be materialist and atheist, that any mention of spirituality implies that one is ‘brain dead’ or worse, delusional, like clients are if they mention religious beliefs. Outside of sexual relationships and those with babies, there is a taboo against silence and ‘core’ connectedness. While you are allowed to gaze in silence at your partner, you are not allowed to gaze in silence while eating lunch with your colleagues in the staff room or with clients. Everyone knows of the uncomfortable silences in a group of people in those moments when no one is talking. In order to help clients in difficulty, therapists must be prepared to break these taboos and relate to clients in a ‘core’ way, enhancing inner connectedness. This means focusing on being not doing, listening not talking, understanding not problem solving. When a client is telling you that they can’t come in to see you, it means really listening to this to hear what they are not saying, not trying to find a way to solve the problem. Understanding why a client wants medication rather than suggesting how they can get it. Understanding what a client means when they say they have an anger problem rather than helping them with "anger management". It means not jumping into problem solving mode but giving yourself time to digest what is going on. Whatever question or advice is asked of you, try to think and act in such a way that the client answers their own question or provides their own advice either through silence or turning the question back onto the client. By doing so you will be giving yourself more time to listen to this client, resonate with the tones of their voice, and the looks on their face. In this way you will be understanding them in a deeper way and making that inner connection that they are actually searching for.

If a client rings you and says that they have no money and can’t get in to see you and you sense that this is completely authentic and that it would be good for them to have a session, then send a taxi for them. But if you sense that the communication is asking something else of you but you don’t know what that something is, ‘buy’ some time until what that something is ‘comes’ to you. If you answer in such a way that what the client says or asks is left ‘hanging’ in the space between you, the client may become more fully aware of what they really want because of the ‘weight’ of the unanswered question or statement hanging there. So if the client says, "I can’t come in today, I have no money" how can you respond in such a way that your response is not really an answer but is in effect a ‘not answering’ so that the client’s statement is left hanging between you? You could say nothing. You could say, "Thank you for telling me" and wait… or simply "Yes" questioningly. Wait for the client to follow this up. The aim is to ‘charge the question’ (Wilberg) so that the client feels the pressure to respond, not you, while giving you time.

What follows are some of the things that I have said to clients when I have sensed that what they asked me isn’t really what they meant, that there is something else of significance in what they said, but I don’t know what it is yet. They may not know what they mean or something else, but I have sensed that underneath their words, there is ambivalence. So I have given myself time to sense what is going on by turning their questions back onto them. It must be understood that you will have to find your own words, what fits for you if you decide to ‘buy yourself time’. But if you find yourself in a similar situation to me and want to ‘not do’, then ask yourself, "What can I say or not say here so that the client answers their own question?"

1. People are searching for inner connectedness, inner relatedness and a sense of meaning in their lives. They want to know that everything in their life ‘makes sense’.
2. Clients do not attend counselling to see just anyone who is competent. They come to see a somebody — YOU.
3. The self is a localised field of consciousness existing within a delocalised larger field of awareness. This larger field contains all the answers to every question we have about anything, and all this knowing is reflected in the body. It is a bodily knowing. Everyone has an ‘inner guidance system’ always telling them what is best for them. We ignore this inner voice at our peril.
4. You don’t have to get rid of problems, but learn to transform suffering them into bearing them.
5. ‘Bad’ habits are not wrong or evil or self-destructive. We created them once to help us survive but through time, they become ineffective, go past their ‘use by’ date, are no longer necessary.
6. We communicate behaviourally when we do not know how to verbalise what we are sensing inside.
7. Everything that society regards as the problem is actually a symptom, our attempted solution to the problem. The real problems are always spiritual problems, a lack of meaning in life and an inability to feel connected to ourselves, other people and the world around us.
8. What the client says, the looks on their face, the tone of their voice is merely the ‘text’ on the page. What communicates through the words, through the looks and tones of voice is all- important. This is the true meaning of dialogue — dia-logos (Greek), through the word!
9. As a therapist, it is important for you to connect with your inner being and come from that ‘space’. By doing so you will be embodying who you are, being completely authentic and the client will feel this as acceptance and be ready to take in what you have to say.
10. There is a right time for therapy and that is when the client feels able to face themselves and deal with the cause rather than symptoms. That time may not necessarily be the first time they consult you. Clients will know when it is the right time, so therapists should always leave the door open.
11. When you sense that the client is unable to be authentic, ‘straight’ with you, amplify and reflect this back to the client — find a way to ‘not do’, to ‘agree’ with the client so that they have the opportunity to become more aware of what is ‘hanging’ in the space between you.
12. The client is the expert on their life. They know what is best for them. Help them move further in the direction they seem to be heading in. In this way all the self-contradictions, problems and obstacles will be heightened and brought out in the open.
13. Life is painful and difficult but possible. Change is hard and takes the time that it takes. Be wary of any ‘brief therapy’ or ways of helping that restrict the time it takes. Some people change their lives overnight, some take many years, but only the client knows when therapy is ‘over’.
14. Hurting peoples’ feelings is unavoidable and is actually a sign of love, as parents instinctively know when bringing up children. The same is true for adults. The choice isn’t between hurting or not hurting but whether you are going to be constructive or destructive when you ‘have’ to hurt someone’s feelings.
15. We live in a safe universe (Seth). The ego is part of a larger Self, is cushioned and supported by this Self, and does not have to manage life, as if it is ‘out of control’ or dangerous. All problems are spiritual problems, resulting from spiritual ignorance.
16. The past is not the cause of the present. The past is where we learned certain ways of behaving. The present is where we continue to believe in those coping behaviours. If we are unhappy in the present, it is our present life and situations that we are unhappy with.

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