Compassionate Therapy explores the characteristics of difficult clients and the nature of client resistance. Arguing that conflict can be a constructive force, it shows how practitioners can use the struggle to examine their own abilities, deepen their compassion, and improve therapeutic flexibility and effectiveness. It offers proven approaches to working through therapeutic impasses with difficult clients and blAnds professional development with personal growth.
[In this book] "difficult clients" is meant as "difficulties with clients..". I like to be challenged in my thinking and there was much about this book that I found thought-provoking and challenging, and which made me re-examine my basic philosophy and approach to counselling... For the newly trained counsellor this book offers organizational, practical and theoretical advice... it gives a good academic overview of understanding how client-counsellor interactions can become difficult, together with some preventative techniques and case-work examples' -"Counselling, The Journal of The British Association for Counselling " Counsellors and other mental health professionals will inevitably encounter clients who are difficult to work with because they do not comply with the basic requirements of forming a trusting relationship and accepting help or advice. Such clients can place an enormous strain on those who try to help them. This book sets out practical guidelines, backed up by examples and a sound theoretical base, for the management of these difficult, disturbed or disturbing clients. The authors concentrate on the everyday difficulties of the transaction between practitioner and client in their respective social contexts, rather than locating the problems solely within the client, and indicate ways in which these difficulties can be successfully overcome.
How to warm up to the clients that stop you cold. Have you experienced the anger, fear, doubt, and frustration that most clinicians feel but rarely put words to? Have you ever overreacted to a client in session or found yourself overwhelmed by the work with that client in your caseload? Are you looking for tools to manage your most “difficult” clients? Chances are, you’re like all other clinicians: At times you play “tug-of-war” with those in your care. The Heat of the Moment in Treatment is for clinicians looking to explore, reassess, and transform the way they treat their most difficult clients. With carefully designed mindfulness-based exercises, self-assessments, and skill development activities, this workbook helps clinicians understand their own role in therapeutic interactions, as well as how to proactively respond to tough client behavior in ways that improve the prospects for successful treatment. Author Mitch Abblett acts as a sensitive, expert guide, laying out a roadmap for the toughest of clinical encounters that almost all therapists face, whether seasoned or just starting out. His use of relatable metaphors, rhetorical questions, and stories from his own experience allows readers to reflect upon their own psychotherapy practice without feeling like there is one right way to deal with challenging clients. The Heat of the Moment in Treatment will help clinicians move beyond assumptions and reactive impulses to their “difficult” clients. Readers will gain proactive clinical leadership skills, while learning how to expand mindful awareness of self and others to access compassion and empathy for any client—even when the “heat” of moment-to-moment interaction in session is hard to tolerate.
Annotation When a client seems unwilling to make the necessary changes, Hanna (counseling and human services, Johns Hopkins U.) suggests that therapists look for the seven precursors of change, including hope, the willingness to experience anxiety or difficulty, and the presence of social support, among others. If the client manifests these harbingers of change, he or she is in a good position for therapeutic success, regardless of the therapist's theoretical leanings. The author outlines the ways that these precursors work interdependently to produce change and offers tools and techniques to assess the presence of the precursors and implement them in therapy. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Lawyers know that client counseling can be the most challenging part of legal practice. Clients question and often resist the complexities and uncertainties inherent in law and legal process. Honest advice from the lawyer can make a client doubt his or her allegiance and zeal. Client backlash may be directed at the lawyer who communicates bad news. Thus, the lawyer may feel torn between the obligation to clearly inform a client about weaknesses in legal positions and fear of damaging the client relationship. Too often, the lawyer struggles to counsel a particularly difficult client, but to no avail. Client Science is written to provide insight and advice to lawyers on how to more effectively communicate with their clients with regard to legal realities and difficult decisions. It will help lawyers with the always-difficult task of delivering "bad news," which will result in better-informed and thus more satisfied clients. The book explains applicable social science research and insights and translates them into plain language relevant to legal practice and client counseling. Marjorie Corman Aaron offers specific suggestions related to a lawyer's ordering, timing, phrasing, and type of explanation, as well as style adjustments for the lawyer's voice, gesture, and body position, all to impact client counseling and to improve the lawyer-client relationship.
This text is designed for mental and behavioral health professionals looking for strategies to eliminate denial, curb manipulation, discourage sabotage and reduce the many other frustrating elements often encountered when working with difficult clients. Filled with specific case examples, 11 Solutions explores the reasons why clients can be difficult, and offers targeted interventions for maximizing the therapeutic process. From building trust to letting the train wreck happen, enjoy non-boring practical information you can actually use in your day-to-day practice.
This thought-provoking book examines the clinical dilemmas faced by therapists who, for a variety of reasons, are working with involuntary or reluctant clients. These individuals often come to therapy through the judicial system but might also be problem employees or spouses persuaded to enter therapy by their mates. Under these circumstances, working together can be frustrating for both therapist and client. The typical therapist's skills of reflecting, probing, and supporting often fail with individuals who did not enter into therapy of their own accord--or who, once there, do not engage readily with the therapist. The inquiring approach to therapy, with its frequent questioning of the client, can have an unwelcome and intrusive quality for poorly motivated clients. Stanley Brodsky demonstrates how therapists can tailor their interventions to avoid impasses, build a firm alliance with the client, and help him or her develop more productive behaviors. Specifically, Brodsky proposes that therapists adopt a variety of techniques that largely avoid asking questions. Instead, he shows how therapists can make assertive statements about what is happening in the client's life, identify behaviors, and describe choices the client might make. Through the use of case material, the author demonstrates that interacting creatively with reluctant clients can lead to significant breakthroughs. The provocative ideas in this book will be welcomed by therapists and counselors who work with offenders, probationers, involuntarily committed patients and, more broadly, other clients who fail to make progress.
Providing clinicians with advice consistent with the current emphasis on working from strengths to promote renewal, this guide presents a holistic approach to psychological wellness. Time-tested advice is featured from experts such as Craig Cashwell, Jeffrey Barnett, and Kenneth Pargament. With strategies to renew the mind, body, spirit, and community, this book equips clinicians with guidance and inspiration for the renewal of body, mind, community, and spirit in their clients and themselves.
