There are many ways to do therapy, and there are many ways not to do therapy – but contrary to this – it is trying to find a way of being to compliment our automatic default of doing.

One simplistic example for teaching purpose might be. The client usually comes in a crisis. Or at least something in their life doesn’t work, even causing them trouble. They start with the problem in narrative/story form. The people/players, the details, how others behave towards them. How unreasonable the situation is, how badly behaved the players in the narrative are. They describe themselves as the object of the narrative. Whatever control influence they have – nothng changes.The narrative won’t change, the players won’t change. Add to this a huge expectation that if only players would change the situation would resolve itself.

At this point if the therapist tries to point out any part the client might have in the narrative – it is resisted. The client will ignore, quickly accept to move on, or go into great narrative detail – again & again & again & again – or maybe go yes but ….The resistance is the biggest part of the early work: some would argue the greatest indicator of a successful therapy. The way the issue is resisted can be bigger than the issue itself.

Experience says the best way of working with resistance is to join in rather than attempt to change. The therapist enters to accompany the role of the client in the narrative, demonstrating with feedback, curiousity, & empathy the client’s view of the world. The narrative slowly, very slowly gives up its energy. The relief of the narrative no longer works. The therapist knows, understands the players, the relationships, the situations, and demonstrates this by being an interactive witness to the narrative. Explanation becomes redundant.

This takes months, years. Some don’t reach this point – let alone go through it. It is not the therapist’s role to push the client anywhere. Some try to end at this stage as a fearful protest to running out of narrative relief. It is unbearable to have the fundamental coping narrative startegy run out of energy.

The therapist can only make it clear where the client is in the present – the possibilities of what might be – but at this time it is not possible. This point – wherever it is – is to be honoured & celebrated as part of the client’s acheivement of surviving the world. The client can see it as a failure – rather than an expression of capacity. With the acknowledgement of this protest most clients muster the bravery to continue. The strength of this protest is a good indicator that the painful weight of the work can be carried ….. so the world of being beckons

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