ahka | Dealing with highly resistant clients by Clifton W. Mitchell, Ph.D.

On Tuesday, I attended a full day seminar on Dealing with highly resistant clients by Clifton W. Mitchell, Ph.D. This was the highlight of this conference for me because it left me with wonderful tools that I can use with my clients and even my kids at home.

The presenter was excellent! Dr. Mitchell kept my attention all day, entertained us, he was very funny at times and somehow made me remember almost everything he was talking about. I even bought his book Effective Techniques for Dealing with Highly Resistant Clients for later reference.

I would not be able to repeat everything in the engaging way Dr. Mitchell presented it but will just mention a few techniques that I started using at home and with clients.

First of all, it is always important to remember that “when we communicate, we cannot not manipulate!” It means that when we talk we have to be careful what messages we are sending to the people and to ourselves. I have learned these simple concepts before and used it for a while, now it was very refreshing to refresh my mind and start using it again.

For example, I noticed about myself that I like to warn my kids not to do something and would tell them something like this: “be careful, you will fall down the stairs!” The key words here are “you will fall!” Do I want my child to fall? NO!!! Why am I telling her or him that he or she will!? All of these key words get stored in our unconscious and time will come when kids would act in the way I told them to.

Another example, Michael likes to make a lot of noises, scream, talk very loud or sing very annoyingly. I would tell him “Please, stop screaming!” They key word here is “screaming” so he continues doing it over and over and over until I start screaming. In both cases, I should change the message that would give the positive keyword that would redirect the attention of the person and prevent the future occurrence. So, technically, I need to watch out and tell my kids and clients what kind of behavior I want from them. I want them to be careful and watch their steps on the stairs. I want Michael to be quieter and so on. It has to focus on the positive outcome.

One of the examples that cracked me up was an example when addiction counselors tell clients statistics about relapse after treatment. This just tells them that they need to relapse! And they do!!!

I don’t think I will be able to tell here everything that I learned. I was ambitious to write more but I can see that I will have to retype Dr. Mitchell’s book here and I don’t think I want to do it. So, I guess I will stop right here.