“Resistance is something that
occurs only within the context
of a relationship or a system.”
Miller & Rollnick, 2002
“Resistance means you did
not do enough warm up.”
Bill Coleman, Psychodrama Therapist
Desire = Resistance
When you perceive resistance,
what are you desiring for your
client?
What do you desire your client
to do?
"Some therapists…are so eager to form a
relationship that they do so on terms that
forever destroy any therapeutic potential.
Other therapists are so eager to force a
client toward maturity that they bring
pressures to bear on him that are beyond
his ability to withstand; unwittingly they
drive the client out of the relationship"
Tate, 1967, as cited in Moursund, 1985
"Resistant client behavior seems…to
conform to Newton’s third law of motion:
For every force there is an equal and
opposite counterforce. In a model in
which overcoming resistance potentially
becomes a contest, the client will often
win.”
Cowan and Presbury, 2000
Never try to teach a tiger to
sing, it wastes your time and
annoys the tiger.
Chinese Proverb
“...resistance to counseling and to the counselor
is not an inevitable part of psychotherapy, nor a
desirable part, but it grows primarily out of poor
techniques of handling the client’s expression
of his problems and feelings…out of unwise
attempts on the part of the counselor to shortcut the therapeutic process by bringing into
discussion emotionalized attitudes which the
client is not yet ready to face.”
Carl Rogers, 1951
“The immature therapist has trouble
backing off. Frustration comes easily
and is usually answered with more
technique and method. Stepping
back is letting go of doing things and
just taking a look at what's going on.”
Ron Kurtz, 1990
“Experience in therapy is not
about knowing, it is about
being comfortable with what
you don’t know.”
J. Graham Disque
“If we become more concerned about the
patient than she is, we neutralize their
motivation; it becomes our problem. We
are then in the same position as the
parent who has taken responsibility for
the child to practice the piano; love of
music is sacrificed to the power struggle.”
Felder & Weiss, 1991
“Engagement predicts outcome.
Your job is to keep the client
engaged.”
Scott Miller
When you directly fight resistance,
counseling becomes an act of
veiled coercion. To prevent
resistance, avoid any agenda that
has a coercive component.
What you resist, persists.
Carl Jung
“…resistance is evoked in the
relationship between counselor
and client when the client
interprets the behavior of the
counselor to mean that a
repetition of injury may occur.”
Cowan and Presbury, 2000
"There is a reason that clients are
often called ‘patients’: one needs to
cultivate one's ‘patience’ in order to
work effectively with them! Like
struggling in quicksand, pushing
impatiently will only serve to further
mire the process."
Moursund & Kenny, 2002
“The moment you think that the
client should be some way other
than how they are you ruin
contact.”
J. Graham Disque
Resistance is perceived when the
therapist fails to cooperate with
the client.
“Perhaps resistance & defensiveness
are often encouraged unwittingly by
pessimistic therapists who never
think of alternative views that might
allow clients to save face and
preserve what little self-esteem they
have.”
Hammond, Hepworth, & Smith, 1977
"…there are no resistant clients,
only inflexible therapists."
Bandler & Grinder, 1979, cited in Walter & Peller, 1992
Resistance is perceived when
you use an inappropriate
theoretical approach relative
to the client’s personality and
situation.
“What is often viewed as resistance
may be merely the result of the
therapist’s assuming that the client
should accept an external narrative as
if it were an empathic one.”
Haim Omer, 1997
"You take people as far as they
will go, not as far as you would
like them to go."
Jeanette Rankin, pacifist & politician
“Resistance is all.”
Anderson & Steward, 1983
"As long as people are going
to resist you may as well
ask them to do so."
Milton Erickson, as cited in Haley, 1973
“You cannot embrace that
which you are not free to
reject.”
J. Graham Disque
"We have trouble with the
concept of resistance. It implies
the therapist ought to do
something about it."
Whitaker & Keith, 1981, cited in Anderson & Steward, 1983
“…we change when we become
aware of what we are as opposed
to trying to become what we are
not.”
Beisser, 1970, cited in Corey, 2005
When it comes to therapeutic
dialogue, its not just
semantics, its all semantics.
"Words are our most
precious natural resource."
James Lipton, host, Inside the Actors Studio
"If you do not want to learn to use
words carefully and accurately
you should probably consider
another profession."
Baird, 1996
“When struggling with a client, you
often think you are missing some
complex skill you have not learned;
in actuality, you have somehow failed
to apply a fundamental skill.”
Scott Miller
Resistance is typically perceived and
presumed when the client does not
respond the way the therapist expects
or desires.