Challenging and confronting clients with compassion
Looking inward: the therapist’s perspective
Understanding the purpose of challenging and confronting clients in therapy
How might our personalities affect our approaches to confrontation?
How might therapeutic style affect approaches to confrontation?
Looking outward: the client’s perspective
Evaluating the client’s perspective on, and capability for, change
Question 1: Is your client ready to change?
Question 2: Is the client willing to change?
Question 3: Is the client able to change?
The game plan for confrontation
Authored by: Sam J. Zizzi , Jessica C. Peacock
From the first three chapters of this book, the importance of building a strong relationship with each client should be evident. Many things can be accomplished with clients once this foundation is built, such as taking the risk of challenging or confronting them on critical issues. Regardless of experience level or theoretical orientation, facilitating strong working alliances with clients and helping them navigate behavior change are two common threads we need to manage in most therapeutic situations. Therapists commonly serve as “agents of change” – so let’s explore how we can become highly skilled facilitators of clients’ behavior change processes by looking at our own self-awareness.