5. Resistance

“There is no such thing as a resistant client, only an inflexible therapist.” -Richard Bandler

I have previously referred to RESISTANCE and its role in the mental health profession. The concept of resistance is applied to the reaction of clients who do not change or let go of their defense mechanisms. These individuals are referred to as “resistant clients.”

Richard Bandler, a co-developer of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), was one of my greatest teachers early in my training. He really got my attention when he said, “There is no such thing as a resistant client, only an inflexible therapist.” This helped me see that my clients were seeking help because they were truly stuck in a rut and could not find a way out by themselves. 

It takes a great deal of strength and courage to come in and talk to a complete stranger and ask for help with our deepest, darkest issues. It is my job to help them get unstuck from their problem patterns, so they are able to create the life they want.

I routinely see my clients try in vain to get rid of the Parts of themselves they do not like. What I teach them is that although they are currently experiencing unwanted and problematic feelings and behaviors, these feelings and behaviors were actually developed at a young age as survival mechanisms.

The outdated survival mechanisms (also called defense/adaptive mechanisms) were learned to help us survive the difficult circumstances of childhood. It is important to recognize that we were trying to do our very best to get what we needed at the time, under the circumstances.

Unfortunately, we get arrested in the stage of development we are in when we first learn these adaptive mechanisms. We continue to use the same responses from that time forward, even though they no longer help us get what they initially intended. Because these adaptive mechanisms are unconsciously generated responses, they do what they do, and even if they don’t get what they initially intended, they do more of the same.

Please remember that we are all doing the best we can with our current state of awareness.