Have you ever been in a meeting that starts to really bug you because it seems to go nowhere, yet others in the room still have lots of energy invested in the discussion? Have you ever had someone call you complaining and you think (but do not say) “why did you call me? What do you want from me? Where is this conversation going?”
This might sound pretty impatient, especially coming from a therapist. Don’t worry if you are one of my clients or are thinking about becoming one of my clients. I do not feel this way in a therapy session. But I have felt it in plenty of meetings, and in conversations with friends and co-workers. What’s the difference? Simple. My clients in therapy sessions are there to solve problems, and they want my help, which I am happy to offer. That’s why they’ve come to therapy with me. And they know, or if they don’t, they learn pretty quickly, that I am not at all interested in sitting with them week after week listening to their problems just to listen to their problems. I am there to hear their problems and I definitely want them to feel understood and appreciated, but that isn’t all, and it shouldn’t be all. The last think I want to do is to encourage my clients to remain stuck in their problems.
Probably the number one complaint I hear from clients that have not gotten what they needed from previous therapy experiences is that they never found their way out of the problems they brought to therapy. If a client told me that I had not helped them find a solution to their problems, I would consider myself a failure. And I don’t like feeling like a failure. Who does? Success in therapy only happens when I can help clients find solutions to their problems so they can get rid of their problems. How? By focusing on problems for one and only one purpose: to find a solution and then use that solution to solve the problem.
Those of you who know me know that before becoming a therapist, I had been a trial lawyer for 13 years (technically, I am still a lawyer now, but I no longer practice law). I often rely on my experiences as both a lawyer and a therapist to help clients heal and resolve their issues. One of my first experiences as a lawyer was a great learning experience for me. I had come across a thorny and complicated legal issue with one of my larger cases. I brought it to the law firm partner whose case it was. We didn’t know each other well (yet), so I wasn’t sure what to expect. He had started the meeting with a friendly and inviting tone. While telling him about the problem, he listened silently, without asking a single question. This made me a little nervous, but I finished my presentation and sat back to hear his solution. He didn’t give me a solution. He gave me something better. A lesson for life. He became stern and irritated, maybe even angry. He told me, “Don’t ever come to me again with a problem, without first coming up with at least one possible solution. I don’t even care if the solution you have is something I don’t like—at least I know you’ve tried. When you hand me a problem without so much as even a single proposed solution, it looks like you are just handing your problem over to me!” I remember feeling one foot tall. After scolding me, he told me to come back when I had come up with at least one solution. A day or two later I came back with several possible solutions, we resolved the issues, and eventually won the case (in case you were curious).
Like I said, this became a life lesson for me. As a parent of a small boy at the time, I began to use the same philosophy (although with a much more caring demeanor) with my son, proposing that he focus on “solutions, not problems.” This taught him to try to solve problems on his own, and hopefully helped him also learn to become independent for adulthood responsibilities.
Later, when I managed several attorneys as the head of a litigation department at a law firm and when I was a Director at a nonprofit organization, I used the same philosophy with my staff. Although it was an adjustment for some, most of my staff eventually began to really appreciate this approach because it encouraged them to believe, rightfully so, that they almost always had the solution right in their hands (and heads), but just needed someone to give them the space and encouragement to find it and a way to express it. I remember sitting in long meetings, where a manager had raised some issue that needed to be resolved for a program to meet the needs of its staff or clients. Staff would sometimes become so focused on detailing all the particulars of the issue they would forget that the whole point of raising the issue was to try to work together to find a solution. Meetings that ended this way would often leave everyone in attendance frustrated and discouraged as they left. Only when the focus shifted to solutions, by disallowing further discussion of the problem itself, was there a realistic possibility of building a collaborative approach to solving the problem.
How does this apply to therapy then? In every single session, with every single client, I ask myself, do I have enough information from my client to suggest shifting to a focus on solutions? Are we getting stuck in the problem? Sometimes the answer is that we need more time focusing on the problem. Sometimes, even when we decide its time to think about solutions, we have to go back to the problem for a while. That’s just fine. We can do that and still be productive. The point is this, if our whole point in talking about the problem is to find a solution, then we cannot be wasting our time. We will eventually be successful together.
Does this mean that talking about issues itself is not helpful? No it doesn’t. The expression of feelings, the re-telling of the story so that it makes more sense, finding lost memories, re-directing shame outward, or guilt inward, shoving off of useless and painful self-blame, and yes even taking of responsibilities for our own behavior, all of this is a helpful part of talking about our issues. If directed properly, kindly, without judgment, and with care, concern, and attention, the telling itself becomes part of the solution. And as long resolving the issue is the primary point of the discussion, no matter how the solution comes, we will have success in our therapy.
