Is My Client Resistant?

Assuming that your client is probably a person (which is likely a pretty safe assumption)…then the answer is yes!

That’s because every person has resistance, which makes every client to some degree or another “resistant.”

But the answer is also no, because there is no such thing as a fundamentally “resistant client.” Every person also has motivation in addition to their resistance, so we can’t simply say that a client is wholly resistant.

It’s important to note that that by the same logic, there is also no such thing as a totally “motivated client” either.

Every one of us embodies the pull between parts that are motivated towards certain things and parts that resist them.

The short answer? Every client is both resistant and motivated, and so it doesn’t do us much good to label someone one way or the other.

Identifying the Resistance and the Motivation

Let’s say that someone comes to therapy wanting to address a bad breakup from a few years ago that they know is impacting them now. There is obviously something in them that is motivated to look at that difficult experience and face the pain that is there. However, in a session when we start talking about their ex and how things ended with them, the client’s body tenses up, they start to look away, and maybe without realizing it they change the subject. This tells me that there is something else in them that does not want to look at that experience and is hesitant to move towards the pain.

It is not helpful to simply categorize this person as “motivated” because they came in wanting to tackle the issue head-on. It also isn’t helpful to label them as “resistant” when they are faced with that pain and don’t want to go into it.

What is helpful is to identify and connect with both the “resistance” and the “motivation” that is present in them and in every client..

Motivation Brings Resistance to Therapy

What I have noticed in working with clients in private practice is that, like the example above, it is their motivation that brings their resistance to therapy.

Here’s a thought experiment to demonstrate this a bit more: Think of a friend or family member who you would love to go to therapy, but you know that they probably won’t. Imagine for a moment that you could bring them in and sit down and tell the therapist all of the things that you think would be helpful for them, all of the things you think they should do differently, the trauma that you believe they need to address.

Now imagine that you leave and they are left there with the therapist. What do you think that would be like for them?

This is actually what happens for all clients who sign themselves up for our services, but just within the same person.

In their first session with me, most people are clear about what they are struggling with, what their pain points are, and how they would like to feel if therapy were successful for them. However, once we move towards getting into the work, it can seem like it is someone else entirely who shows up to protect themselves from doing the exact same things they signed up to do.

At first, then, we believe that we are working with a “motivated client” and can be totally stumped when they don’t seem to want to do the very things that they said they wanted to do when they first came in. And this can apply to any field - whether you’re a personal trainer, nutritionist, physical therapist, coach, or anything else.

Maybe the client shows up to the gym on the first day, super-enthusiastic and giving it their all. But the next week you find them chatting you up to push off the start time of their training session.

Or perhaps after a really exciting discovery call, someone buys a 12-week coaching package and after week three, they keep cancelling on you.

What seemed on the surface like a “motivated client” is actually someone full of contradiction, just like all of us.

It’s not that they aren’t motivated - it’s just that they aren’t only motivated.

Resistance Protects Motivation

If you work with court-mandated clients or do couples therapy, you may know what it is like to work with someone where the resistance is right at the surface. They straight-out tell you that they don’t want to be there or they don’t want to go there and that they’re sitting in that room because they feel that they have to be. While this has happened less frequently as a private practice therapist (though more frequently than you might think), I also have a decent number of individual clients who come in saying that they don’t really want to be in therapy and they are only there because they don’t know what else to do. In any case, while it may not seem to be true, there is motivation lurking beneath the resistance.

It is all-too-easy in wellness fields for practitioners to dismiss these clients as being entirely “resistant” or “difficult” and fail to honor whatever shred of motivation brings them to that meeting. Especially when that motivation might not be what we think it “should” be, like simply getting through probation or proving that therapy isn’t going to work for them.

Beyond that, we can miss out on the motivation behind the behaviors or ways of thinking that they don’t want to change, even when others (including ourselves) think they “should.” Not wanting to come to therapy is often a way to protect whatever it is they get from the current status quo. That might be the soothing or relief they get from their substance use or the safety they get by keeping their partner at a distance.

It’s not that they aren’t resistant - it’s just that they aren’t only resistant.

Shifting Away from Labels

When we look at the way a client shows up through the lens of how we think they should be or what they should do, we can too easily categorize them as either “motivated” or “resistant” and miss half of the picture.

When we stay open and curious, we can start to ask, “Where is this person motivated?” and, “How is this person resistant?” We can invite all facets of them without having to limit them to being one thing or another.

It is from here that we can really start to work with all parts of our clients so that they can feel supported and met in their particular nuance.

If you’re interested in how to work with your clients’ resistance rather than against it, let’s connect and see how I can support you.