How to deal with the expert therapy client

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What to do when your therapy client has heard it all before - by Mark Tyrrell

"Can you get past the other therapists' baggage?" courtesy of Tim Tyrell-Smith

Have you ever met someone who you felt perhaps had been 'over-therapied'? Maybe they talked like a self help book, spewing psychobabble like cocoa from a chocolate fountain. Maybe everything had to be analysed in minute detail and/or excessively dwelt upon in order to elicit the maximum sympathy, rather than just spontaneously dealt with. Perhaps they "know what you are trying to do" or constantly refer back to what other therapists said or did.

Therapy, ideally, should work 'behind the scenes'. It should not be an intrusive 'reference point' that must always be trotted out and referred to in every situation in life. It should help us live more fluidly, so we don't need to be stopping to analyse every thought and every feeling and potentially losing all perspective.

Some people have had many different therapists and hundreds of therapy sessions because they genuinely need help for severe psychological suffering. But 'more' isn't necessarily 'better', and the 'over-therapied' may have become confused by all the theory they have been fed.

If we suspect that psychotherapy has become the raison d'être for someone, we may have to deal with this part of the pattern of 'who they are' before we can hope to make much progress on the issue that originally - perhaps long ago now - impelled them to seek therapy.

Sometimes the original complaint that led them to therapy may have been something quite simple, but the notion that one's problems always have 'deep roots' is pervasive and many people are easily persuaded that treatment needs to be complex and long drawn out. Not to mention expensive.

Here's how we can help someone with suspected therapeutic 'indigestion':

1. Differentiate

Make it clear that you are not like other therapists. Tell your client that you (and they) have no need to talk psychobabble or theory.

2. Set clear therapy goals

Clear, achievable and time limited goals are essential for good therapy. It's amazing how many 'professional clients' seem to have forgotten what therapy is supposed to be for.

3. Get needs met outside of therapy

People who have been 'in therapy' for a long time are particularly at risk of unconsciously using their therapy sessions as a substitute for meeting their basic emotional needs - especially for attention, company, and a sense of purpose and meaning.

Clients may sometimes need help to switch to getting these needs met outside the consulting room, so that the therapy doesn't itself become an (expensive) addiction for them. We don't want therapy to be part of their problem!

I'm not for a moment suggesting that everyone who's had therapy before is like this, but the 'professional client' will be recognizable to any therapist who has been around a while. And they may be quite unaware of the trap they have fallen into.

Mark Tyrrell is a therapist, trainer and author and is the co-founder of Hypnosis Downloads, the web's busiest hypnosis site where you can get a cutting-edge hypnosis session for almost any situation.

You can train with Mark Tyrrell from anywhere in the world, on our distance learning therapy courses, in topics such as Learn hypnosis online, Lift depression fast and the Fast Phobia Cure.

You can learn How to Stop Anyone Smoking with Mark Tyrrell on our Smoking Cessation Training Course (online).

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