Steve Andreas > Books Authored > Six Blind Elephants > Chapter 12

�Resistance�

When a client objects to a proposed change or solution, therapists often categorize this as resistance. Often a therapist will even jump to a much more general category, and assume that the client has objections to any change, rather than only to a particular change.

In the example above, Connirae reversed an underlying presupposition (all too common in the field of therapy!) that objections are obstacles that prevent change. Objections provide vital and helpful information about how to modify a proposed change or outcome so that it fits with all the person�s other outcomes, beliefs, concerns, etc.

When a client doesn�t want to make a particular change, it is because the change would interfere with some other beneficial outcome that the client has. This is something that they may recognize consciously, �If I became more honest and forthright, I might get fired from my job.� Or an objection might be much less conscious, evident only in a vague troubling feeling that they get when they think of being different, �I just get this queasy feeling, like I�m scared of doing that.�

Every objection arises out of some positive outcome that is threatened by a change; it will tend to prevent or interfere with the change unless and until the change is modified so that the outcome is satisfied. When a client raises an objection to a change, they are offering valuable information about what other criteria need to be satisfied in order to make the change appropriate and lasting. An objection really does help the process of developing an outcome or intervention that will really work well and be lasting. This is a recategorization that is widely and desperately needed in the entire field of therapy.

When you validate�or even take sides with any objection to a change�the client will often take the other side, joining fully with the advantages of changing, and start figuring out how this could actually be done. Allying with the benefits of a problem is particularly useful with people who tend to oppose whatever someone else says.

Frank Farrelly is particularly skilled at this; he often begins an interview by saying, �You�d be nuts to change! Look at all the advantages to staying the way you are.� For instance, an attractive woman who had been a call girl making up to $500 a night (and probably blowing most of it on a drug addiction) was assigned to Frank for discharge planning from the hospital.

Frank (incredulously): Discharge planning?! (laughs) Hell, with your internal, personal resources I think it�s quite clear how you can make the scene in the community.

Patient (protesting):Well, just a minute�I�m getting a job as a waitress.

Frank (reasonably):Well, what the hell do you want to stand on your feet eight hours a day when you can make the same amount of money lying on your back for 20 minutes?

Patient (laughing but serious):Will you quit talking like that?! (29, p. 57)

By allying himself with the benefits of not changing, Farrelly is doing the opposite of what most �helpful� therapists have probably tried to do in the past�ignore or downplay these benefits, and get the person to change in spite of them. By listing the benefits of not changing, both therapist and client can become more completely aware of the advantages of the problem and work toward finding ways to take them into account when exploring new alternatives.

Another way of thinking about �resistance� is that all change involves security (not losing what you already have) and-development (gaining something valuable that you don�t already have). Often people (and therapists!) make the mistake of thinking of these as polar opposites�security OR development�and that in order to have one of them you have to sacrifice the other.

When you recognize the importance of both, you can put them together and realize that people want to have both security and development. �How can you change in a way that is secure?� or How can you be secure as your contemplate change?� Whenever someone wants a change, we need to give equal recognition and respect to the importance of the existing situation, and recognize that it, too, has risks and costs; every choice provides opportunities for both security and development.