Is your client pushing you over the edge with frustration?
Not all clients are going to be easy to work with. Sometimes we get someone who “slips through our door,” that is not our ideal client. We don’t expect conflict with our clients, especially if we don’t catch the “red flags.” So what happens when your client starts to push your boundaries? And how does this impact the therapeutic relationship?
I honestly don’t like conflict. When I sensed conflict, this would lead eventually to resentment and frustration towards those clients. I was raised to be the peacekeeper and to not get involved in conflict. So it wasn’t easy to work with difficult clients. I used to freeze with anxiety, when clients would try to provoke me into an argument. I felt paralyzed in not knowing how to respond back. I wasn’t taught how to navigate these situations in grad school. So I felt completely lost and overwhelmed, which allowed clients to “walk all over me.” It wasn’t until I learned how to set my boundaries with confidence, that I felt in control and collected in sessions. This is why I support therapists like you, so you don’t have to struggle so hard in these tough situations.
Here’s three tips on how to be calm and collected with your difficult clients:
Take time before and during sessions, to take a deep breath and ground yourself into your body.
Keep open body language with good active listening skills. Validate your client. And gently explore their behavior, to help them find insight into their behavior.
Remind yourself to not take your client’s maladaptive behavior or reaction personally. Most likely this behavior was developed in childhood, due to their trauma.
So the next time you’re dealing with a challenging client, remember these three tips and proceed with caution and care. Remember our clients are coming to us, because they truly believe that we can help them. So it’s important that we monitor our 'internal temperature,” so we don’t respond out of impulse which can hurt our therapeutic relationships.