**Note: This situation didn't happen to me, but I saw a video of this interaction for a class. I took the opportunity to write about it as if I were in the counselor's shoes.**
The problem was obvious: he was beating his wife. It said it right in his chart. But
we weren’t going to get anywhere if we started with that. He didn’t even want
to be here in this office with me. His wife had coerced him into getting this
counseling session and there he sat, shut up. He
wouldn’t even look at me. And here I was, the very non-aggressive male
counselor, trying to help in some way. We were stuck—or so it seemed.
Like in Al-Anon groups, the first step is admitting there is
a problem. But he wasn’t the talkative type. “I have my problems,” he said
simply. “Like to deal with them on my own.” Problems? That was an
understatement.
I took the gander. “What kind of problems?” I stayed
neutral, nonverbally open and receptive.
“Just… problems.”
Right. Okay. Patience was going to be the name of the game.
I wasn’t going to probe too deeply, but let him indicate how much he was ready
for, like squishing a ball of dough and letting it bounce back into shape. No
stretching yet, just test the rebound. Let him hear what he’s saying, and show
him I was listening, not a hint of accusation in my voice.
“You want to deal with them on your own, you say. So why
might your wife want you here?”
“Well… My wife wants to go back to school. She nags me about
it.” Okay. That wasn’t the primary issue here, but it was a concrete
description. Definitely something to work with.
“She nags you. She wants to go back to school.” I repeated. I’m listening. Keep going.
“Yeah. But she works in a job already and she takes care of
the kids too.”
I repeated his words again. “She’s got the kids and she works.” Keep going.
“Yeah, she works. Seems like she’s got enough going on.”
We continued in this fashion for awhile. Tedious but
effective. Eventually, the issue of nagging is expanded. She nags him when he’s
eating, when he’s falling asleep, when he gets home from work. He’s stressed
already and it makes it worse, hearing she wants to go back to school. He
dislikes change. Plus, he doesn’t want to lose her or for her to outshine him
by becoming a lot smarter than he is by taking classes. But, as revealing that was, it wasn’t
getting to the violence part yet.
“Nagging seems to be one part of a larger issue. Did something happen recently that brought you here today?”
It might seem like a lot of work and redundancy just to get
him to admit one thing—he does beat her—let alone the one thing that I the
counselor already know. But with a lot of patient listening, we got there. To
gain any ground, I knew I’d have to build rapport with the guy. I would listen
to his story and I wasn’t going to accuse him. He could hear himself describe
how irritation at home had turned into a much bigger problem. I listened to the
underlying factors and not just the violent symptoms.
No matter how dramatic or harmful the symptoms, even starting
with direct, albeit well-meaning, questions would have put him on the defensive
and halted any hope of progress. We wouldn’t have made it to positive, mutual
steps to change if I had just started point blank with “How can we help you
stop hitting your wife?” I heard his fear,
his stress, and even how he cared about his wife. See how reasonable his side
of the story begins: there’s enough going on already, he’s afraid he’ll lose
her, she nags him even when he’s trying to fall asleep after a long day. Put
yourself in his shoes. If you were stressed, afraid, guilty, and
sleep-deprived, as well as having an anger management problem, you might be
more prone to lash out at your wife, too! I’m not justifying his actions, but I
saw what had brought him to that point. I believed that he wanted to change, and he
began to see that too.
I learned a lot that day. Made me wonder what’s on the
inside of people that I miss with all my direct questioning. Made me glad
progress could be made with such a resistant client. It reminded me how a
point-blank statement like “he’s beating her” can have so many pre-formed
judgments that immediately pop up in my head. Those judgments make me less
empathetic and less willing to listen, because I want the change for that person
now. However, if the client isn’t
ready, then that’s where I’ll stay too. The key is tapping into his intrinsic desire to change. And
thankfully, we got there… eventually. It’s just that the way there wasn’t so
obvious.
