How convenient is that?
Sep 08, 2016‘Ok, so ethics is very important when working with your clients. But there’s something else that I want to cover now, that is also a key consideration if you really want to help your clients change. And I’m guessing you do?’ The lecturer seemed to be looking right at me as she raised one eyebrow and nodded in my direction.
I had been studying the mind for a number of years at this college and the lecturers were fantastic.
Then she pulled up a chair and sat at the front of the class room, right in the middle .. like she was going to tell us a story.
‘Let me share an experience with you that I think will illustrate this point.’ She said. ‘I had a client come to see me once, suffering with debilitating migraine headaches. She’d been struggling with them since the birth of her first child.’
‘I asked her to tell me what she does when she gets one of her headaches. She didn’t even pause for breath, she leapt into great detail about the process she has to go through just to cope when one strikes. The first thing she said she did, as soon as she felt it coming on, was to phone her husband and get him to come home from work early. Then she would go into her room, draw the curtains, shut the door and lay there in bed in the quiet, moving as little as possible.
‘Her husband would meet the kids from school, bring them home, do their homework with them, make them dinner, clear up, bath them, read them a story and put them to bed. Then, when everything was quiet and calm and tidy, she would try and see if she was able to come downstairs again.’
The lecturer was starting to laugh by the end, and everyone in the class room was starting to laugh too. Then she said ‘I looked at her and said, so if your husband takes care of everything for you, your headache goes away?’
Someone called out from the front of the class ‘What did she say?’
‘She had a completely straight face, she looked at me, nodded and said yes, that’s right!’
Everyone in the classroom was laughing now.
‘It sounds obvious when we talk about it here, but to her, she was in it and this was real life. You see, secondary gains are hidden from most people, that’s why they’re a problem. Often they’re much easier for someone else to spot from the outside.
‘Now I’m not saying that migraines aren’t real, of course they are, for lots of people. But there are many blurred, grey lines for many people in many areas of our lives. Almost anyone can talk themselves into things, convince themselves of something, particularly if there is something in it for them that they really want.’
As I listened to her explain the cunning nature of the mind, I thought back to yesterday’s sessions. We spent the whole day with a different lecturer with a strong background in psycho-analytics. One of the things that really stuck with me was when he said ‘Whenever anyone tells me about their problem, I always find myself thinking .. hmmmm .. and how CONVENIENT is that?’
It’s a great question to think about when we’re trying to help someone isn’t it?
And how convenient is that?
But it’s an even better question to ask ourselves when we’re stuck or struggling. I’m not saying that our problems aren’t real .. but sometimes a good problem can excuse us the hard work of trying, can’t it?
I had been studying the mind for a number of years at this college and the lecturers were fantastic.
Then she pulled up a chair and sat at the front of the class room, right in the middle .. like she was going to tell us a story.
‘Let me share an experience with you that I think will illustrate this point.’ She said. ‘I had a client come to see me once, suffering with debilitating migraine headaches. She’d been struggling with them since the birth of her first child.’
‘I asked her to tell me what she does when she gets one of her headaches. She didn’t even pause for breath, she leapt into great detail about the process she has to go through just to cope when one strikes. The first thing she said she did, as soon as she felt it coming on, was to phone her husband and get him to come home from work early. Then she would go into her room, draw the curtains, shut the door and lay there in bed in the quiet, moving as little as possible.
‘Her husband would meet the kids from school, bring them home, do their homework with them, make them dinner, clear up, bath them, read them a story and put them to bed. Then, when everything was quiet and calm and tidy, she would try and see if she was able to come downstairs again.’
The lecturer was starting to laugh by the end, and everyone in the class room was starting to laugh too. Then she said ‘I looked at her and said, so if your husband takes care of everything for you, your headache goes away?’
Someone called out from the front of the class ‘What did she say?’
‘She had a completely straight face, she looked at me, nodded and said yes, that’s right!’
Everyone in the classroom was laughing now.
‘It sounds obvious when we talk about it here, but to her, she was in it and this was real life. You see, secondary gains are hidden from most people, that’s why they’re a problem. Often they’re much easier for someone else to spot from the outside.
‘Now I’m not saying that migraines aren’t real, of course they are, for lots of people. But there are many blurred, grey lines for many people in many areas of our lives. Almost anyone can talk themselves into things, convince themselves of something, particularly if there is something in it for them that they really want.’
As I listened to her explain the cunning nature of the mind, I thought back to yesterday’s sessions. We spent the whole day with a different lecturer with a strong background in psycho-analytics. One of the things that really stuck with me was when he said ‘Whenever anyone tells me about their problem, I always find myself thinking .. hmmmm .. and how CONVENIENT is that?’
It’s a great question to think about when we’re trying to help someone isn’t it?
And how convenient is that?
But it’s an even better question to ask ourselves when we’re stuck or struggling. I’m not saying that our problems aren’t real .. but sometimes a good problem can excuse us the hard work of trying, can’t it?
Until next time ..
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