When a client feels stuck, it could be a fear of failure that keeps them from moving forward.
Not only that but staying stuck might be their way of shutting out deeper insecurities.
So how can we help clients work through their fears and reconnect to the kind of hope that spurs forward momentum and breaks them out of their “stuckness”?
In the video below, Thema Bryant, PhD shares her process for helping clients uncover the feelings that keep them at a standstill – and start to move forward
Click here for full transcript
And it’s important that we give people space to grieve, to grieve the losses of a stuck life. To grieve the losses of stagnation. For many, that looks like lost time. How many years have I been trying and trying, knocking at this door, beating my head against this wall and nothing shifting for me? So not only lost time but lost opportunities.
It may feel like, and I have this with some clients who feel like their moment of either a possible love or their moment for their career has passed, and it will never come back again and so they’re feeling stuck. And so, I really try to cultivate self compassion and understanding within people, of resignation or surrender is a way that we try to protect ourselves. Because it is risky to hope. It is risky to set a new dream after you’ve been disappointed.
And so, it’s understandable that if I put my hopes on something and it fell apart for me to just say, it’s just not for me to have great things in my life. So I’m not going to apply to school again, I’m not going to apply for another job, I’m not going to get back in the dating arena, I’m not going to keep trying to have children, it’s not in the cards for me. And so, it may be in that position of having given up hope that people are coming in with us.
Now here’s the tension, is there could be a mustard seed. A little piece of them that is still hoping. Even as I’m giving the therapist this script or this narrative that no one will ever love me, a part of me deeply desires to be loved. And so, giving breath and space for that tension of what it feels like to believe, you should up on the search and a part of you still wants it.
I have several clients who are in that place of never having been married, never having had children, and it just wasn’t what they thought, of how their life was going to be. They imagined themselves with partners and kids and it hasn’t happened. So that pull of, do I give up on it? Which then also sends out a certain energy is the way I describe.
You’re interacting with people who are open to relationship, to love, to possibility, they engage in a particular way, than people who are like “No, it’s not possible.” And so, reflecting on that and helping people who feel stuck or feel like they’re unable to change, to take a look at their life history.
Because often there were early experiences that set them up to believe these distorted views of themselves, to hold onto these distorted views of themselves. So we have to talk about that as core beliefs of, I am unlovable, I am insignificant, I am stupid, I am not deserving of protection.
When we raise these prior experiences, and more importantly, how they made us feel and think about ourselves, then it opens the room for some flexibility in how I see myself, because what I’m raising with clients is the distinction between a symptom or a sign of distress versus an identity. If I am showing up in a particular way because of the abandonment or because of the abuse, then it’s a trauma response. It is not actually my capacity, my capability, my truth.
I use this phrase, “Trauma affects you but it doesn’t have to define you.” So it has affected the way you have lived your life and I do not have to continue to stick to that script. It can be challenging because people who don’t believe they can change, you want to hold the beauty of that they’re coming to therapy, of a whole thing, so you know the seed is there.
We need strategies to uncover the defenses that keep clients stuck (and help them move beyond pain and fear). That’s why we want to share this course with you. In it, you’ll hear insights from experts such as Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Marsha Linehan, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Tara Brach, PhD; Peter Levine, PhD; and more.
Now we’d like to hear from you. How have you worked with clients who are stuck? Please let us know in the comments.
THE ILLUMINATING POINT ABOUT THIS SHORT VIDEO IS TO ENCOURAGE THE CLIENT TO GRIEVE THE LOST OPPORTUNITIES AND THEN TO WORK ON SELF COMPASSION. IT IS TRUE IMO THAT THE LONGER THE CLIENT HAS REMAINED STUCK THE MORE SELF HATRED ARISES, ALONG WITH HOPELESSNESS. HENCE SELF COMPASSION IS KEY. HARDER DONE THAN SAID.
All agreed, but there are other reasons why clients get stuck. For example, internal conflict. One part of the client needs the symptom to preserve a sense of identity, to preserve psychological continuity. We need to focus on identity conflicts not only distorted views of self. For an article on this topic type in Google search: bmc psychiatry feixas
Great to be reminded of the importance of exploration and letting the client take the lead as well