I’ve occasionally worked with clients who exhibit that peculiar and often confusing blend of domination and aggression couched in supplication and appeasement. Apparent congeniality and agreeability laced with sarcasm and subtle obstructiveness. So, what specific patterns do we see in the passive-aggressive person? And how can we help them?
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If you are a therapist or coach of any persuasion; counsellor, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, life coach, bodyworker, in fact anyone who works in the helping professions, you will glean valuable, actionable ideas, tips and techniques from Clear Thinking, my free therapy techniques newsletter.
In it you'll find a wide range of topics including solution focused therapy approaches, cognitive-behavioural therapy techniques, ideas from DBT, hypnotherapy, counselling and even the occasional philosophical piece. I've been treating people with psychotherapy for more than 30 years and I've drawn what I find useful from many fields. I hope you find it helps you in your practice too, whatever flavour of helper you are.
Should I Use Hypnosis With a Client Who Dissociates?
“If dissociation is a fundamental part of hypnosis, is it something you would not use with someone who tends to dissociate?” Certainly it’s a great question. As you’ll see (or hear) in my reply, dissociation is a regular part of everyday life for all of us, but for some it becomes a dysregulated state and […]
How to Help the Hating Client
Like obsessive love, hatred can make us feel alive. Its galvanising intensity can lend us energy – its single focus can make life feel meaningful. It can make us feel intoxicatingly certain. But it can ruin us.
Why Do People Believe Weird Things?
We can all be induced to believe strange things and having ‘weird’ beliefs has real world consequences.
Research Roundup 17
How do research findings connect to the bigger picture of reality? What do interesting psychological titbits actually tell us about the wider human condition? How can we increase understanding of ourselves and others, rather than simply accruing more information? In this occasional series I take five pieces of recent research and offer my take on […]
3 Ways to Help Clients Overcome Past Emotionally Abusive Relationships
Whom we get involved with can have major ripple effects in our lives. The after-effects of an emotionally or physically abusive relationship can include extreme emotional insecurity, chronic fear of abandonment, trust issues, or even symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. So what principles might we use to help our clients truly move on from past […]
How to Help Your Client Lose Weight
Aside from the larger patterns of therapy, we can share some evidence-based tips with our weight loss clients to help support them towards their goal. I encourage my clients to factor these tips into their daily life in order to get slimmer without it seeming like some medieval exercise in martyrdom! Here are a few […]
How to Do Naturalistic Therapy
From endless form filling and clunky information taking to one-size-fits-all hypnosis scripts and laborious explanations of what techniques we are going to ‘do’ to someone, the lexicon of bad practice posited as ‘best practice’ is scary. Therapeutic technique should flow from conversation and feel, as often as possible, like a natural part of the conversation. […]
How to Treat Pseudoepileptic Seizures
The unconscious mind can behave in ways that confuse and confound the conscious mind (and other people!). Here I examine one such case and take a look at how we can unravel the hidden ‘logic’ behind such bizarre psychosomatic symptoms.
Working With the Avoidant Client
I’m not one for labelling people. Therapy should, I feel, help clients transcend their labels. But I think looking at some people through the frame of personality disorders can be useful, as long as we don’t fall into the trap of not seeing the unique individual behind the label. In this piece I’ll focus on […]
