Overcome resentment: how to confront challenging clients
Hey Clinicians, You’re just chugging along, until you hit the brakes hard! Your new client for the third time this month, wants to reschedule their session right before their session starts. And you agree each and every time! But you’re creating sessions outside of your work day, because your client can’t make the times when you’re available! And now you are resentful because you don’t want to work first thing in the morning, or at night!
I get it, we have empathy and compassion for our clients, so enabling them does happen. We can give 50 different excuses, as to why we should let our clients reschedule their sessions. We’d rather avoid confronting our clients, to not create conflict, or to become emotionally reactive, by taking it personally. But if we avoid this conversation, this can quickly become a pattern, where clients expect you to rearrange your schedule for them. Believe me, this is not a pattern that is sustainable, because it will add to your burnout and frustration with your clients.
I know you don’t want to confront your client, because you’re afraid that they’ll quit therapy, or they’ll become angry with you for not accommodating them. So guess what happens? You continue to enable this behavior, instead of putting an end to it and now you dread seeing your client. But on the other hand, things could be different. You can learn how to set boundaries and stick to them. I teach Clinicians like you, on how to set boundaries, to prevent unhealthy patterns from continuing with your clients.
Here’s 3 tips on: How To Stop Enabling Your Clients:
Go over your business policies on late cancelations. Remind clients that they will be charged if they late cancel. Remember you are running a business and it’s best business practice to have policies intact.
Practice saying NO. You’ll be surprised to see that clients will rearrange their schedule, to fit into your available spots. They’ll respect you more, when they know that you hold to your business boundaries. If they “push back” then reassess if they are your right fit client, or not.
Seek out your own therapy, if you’re falling into a codependent dynamic with your clients. There’s no shame when we ask for support, after all we continue to grow and evolve as Clinicians!
I believe that we can have compassion towards our clients and hold firm boundaries. This will prevent having resentment towards our difficult clientWe need to model the behavior we want to see in our clients. We can show our clients what healthy confrontation looks like. Enabling our clients, is not helping them be independent and it’s only creating issues in our therapeutic relationships.
If you need support with this, reach out to me for 1-1 coaching, so you can overcome your resentment and learn how to approach your challenging client.