Is Focussing on the Problem the Best Way to Help a Client Change?
Psychologists, social workers, etc. have been taught to dig into what is wrong with our clients, as if we’re taught to discourage them first, then help them out of the hole we helped dig! What would happen if instead we looked at their strengths?
This Burden
This is another poem I wrote about the weight and fatigue of surviving life’s difficulties, and how just holding someone’s burden for a moment can make a huge difference to them.
Why Wouldn’t You Want to Learn Motivational Interviewing?
When we offer unsolicited solutions, it passes the message to our clients that they are incompetent in their own lives, demobilises them and makes our job harder. This is why MI is a useful and practice-changing client-centered approach.
Giving Up Something You Love… For a Life You Can Live
Whether someone chooses to give up a passion like tennis or gambling, they will suffer a loss of what they loved. Compassion is crucial as they follow through with either decision.
Not My Circus, Not My Monkey
If we could stop taking on other people’s responsibilities and focus more closely on our own, we might find ourselves with more energy, patience and time for the important things.
In the New Year 2015
Sometimes we get so hung up on what we want to accomplish that we don’t notice what we are experiencing on the way.
Love What You Have (or the Point of Comparison)
So often we get caught up in the appearances of things and relationships around us without really knowing what the truth is underneath and the cost of what we are seeing.
How to Survive Winter…
Many in northern climates complain about the cold and dark winters, but is this helpful? How to combat the winter blues.
Busy, Busy, Busy – What’s the Process and What’s the Outcome?
Most of us pay too much attention to our To Do lists, focussing on the outcome. But focussing on the process is so much richer!