Working With “Difficult” Clients [Means Working With Ourselves]
It’s Monday morning and you check your calendar for the upcoming week and you feel yourself tense up a bit. Your most “difficult” client is scheduled to come in this afternoon and you had totally forgotten.
Maybe it’s a client who always has what seem like excuses for why things aren’t working for them - that they couldn’t follow their nutrition plan because they were so busy or they couldn’t make time as a couple to connect this week because one of them had a work emergency.
Maybe this client is really talkative and always seems to derail your meetings or sessions to the point that you feel like you never really get anything done with them.
Or maybe this is a client who seems to simply not put in the effort - they don’t talk in therapy, they drag their feet doing reps during your personal training sessions, or they don’t do their physical therapy exercises between appointments.
Whatever it is that makes them “difficult” for you, I can guarantee that somewhere in there is some degree of what could be called resistance. And you’re likely at the end of your rope in terms of knowing what to do with them.
Metaresistance: Our Reaction to “Difficult” Clients
We all got into wellness professions because we wanted to help other people, often in ways that we ourselves have been helped. We’re in this work because we care and want people to get something from the experience they have working with us.
So when our clients seem to not be benefiting from our work together for whatever reason, it’s natural that we would have some kind of reaction to that. We might have a hard time working with clients that seem to be stuck or not making progress in the ways we would hope. It could be confusing or even painful when a client ghosts or simply drops out part way through their process with us.
One aspect of how we respond to our clients’ resistance is what I call metaresistance: a resistance inside of us as wellness professionals towards our clients’ resistance.
In other words, we have some kind of rejection or negative judgement of our clients’ resistance. As a result, our impulse is to attempt to get rid of, over, around, or through their resistance - or just to ignore it altogether.
Who’s to Blame?
In general, we tend to frame “the problem” of our clients’ resistance in one of two ways: either the resistance is their fault or it’s my fault.
If I think it’s my fault, the story I might tell myself is:
I’m a crappy professional and I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’m not working hard enough - I need to try harder.
I’m doing something wrong - if I just read another book, take another course, etc., then I’ll figure it out.
If I think it’s their fault, the story might look more like:
If they’re stuck, it’s because they’re not trying hard enough.
If they aren’t trying harder, it’s because they don’t really want it.
I’m wasting my time with this client - they’re never going to change.
Whether I see the client’s resistance as “my fault” or “their fault” is going to create a different reaction in me.
How Metaresistance Shows Up
These stories we tell ourselves inform how we respond when we experience our clients as being resistant. And just like our clients’ resistance can be more overt or covert, our metaresistance can be the same.
Let’s go back to that “difficult client” and check in with yourself about what you might normally do when you know they’re coming in.
Covert metaresistance:
You suck it up and try to be really friendly and helpful to them, sometimes working extra hard to try to help move them along.
You cheerlead the client, giving them a bunch of encouragement and positive feedback. (“You can do it!”)
You try to be super-prepared for the meeting (more than with other clients), looking into new approaches or consulting with colleagues about the client’s situation.
Overt metaresistance:
You ignore or avoid the fact that they are coming in until they walk through the door.
You half-ass your session or meeting with them because “it doesn’t seem to matter anyway.”
You “battle” against the resistance, trying to convince them that if they just did x or y, then they would make progress.
Now - none of these tactics are inherently “bad.” Just like our clients’ resistance isn’t inherently bad, these metaresistance responses are attempts to take care of ourselves or our client. It may also be true that some of these things “work” to some degree or another to get our clients back in touch with their motivation.
The issue is that, whether overt or covert, our metaresistance communicates that there is something wrong with how our client is showing up. And whether or not we think so, our clients perceive that and it impacts their process. (I’m speaking as a “resistant client” myself. Trust me. We know.) It continues to cast resistance as the enemy and perpetuates the client’s internal conflict and now puts us in conflict with the client’s resistance.
How to Work With Metaresistance
Our internal work is the foundation of our client work. So the most important place to start is with yourself. If we aren’t clear internally and acting from a place of trusting our clients and appreciating both their motivation and their resistance, we will inevitably get in the way of their process.
Get clear about your metaresistance patterns and also how they show up in different ways with different clients.
Start to explore underlying reasons why these patterns exist - where do they come from and how are they trying to take care of you?
Get support if needed (whether from your supervisor, a colleague, your therapist) so that you can tend to the needs of both the client’s motivation and their resistance.
After you get clear with yourself, then the next step is to explore how to work with the client’s resistance as an ally rather than the enemy.
Get Support
If you’re looking for some of that direct support, whether that’s with how to work with your client’s resistance or with your own metaresistance, reach out to schedule a one-time Resistance Reframe Session. If you want to see if we’re a good fit before scheduling, I’d love to get to know you and hear more about what you’re looking for.
