हीलिंग Connections

In my learning it has been important to me to ask, what is it that assists humanity in the healing process, what works? The question I assume is one that is on every student’s mind, that even established therapist’s seek the answer to, the desire to be our most useful when working with clients. We and I mean us of all healing professions, talk about therapies and their modalities as the cure all. Often one is in favour and others are debunked, and some are seen as the best, and others are seen as not operating from evidence based back ground. With no scientific proof each new or popular theory espousing to be better than the other, all of them offering a more unique or a better way of working with the emotional health and well being of all. The research and evaluation that goes into proof is astounding as to is the lack of evidence in some instances. The best modality or evidence to prove the best modality is not the topic that I would like to explore today, but has been on my mind in the past.

I am sure that these concerns are not just mine; does this mean that therapies are progressing, getting better with time? If so perhaps if you were to look back at past therapies you would find errors, un-useful ways of supporting a client, misconduct by today’s standards etc....I am sure this is possible. Is this important, the history, the proof the standards, the modalities?

If we look at how the world outside of therapies looks after clients we could see that in business we ask our customers what they would like. I am not so sure this is foreign to us. Or in business we convince the client they would like or even need something that we have to sell, good marketing is something that therapies, modalities and the healing professions have really come to grips with, and we sell our services every day. What would happen if as others have before us we just reviewed the most important outcomes from a non biased platform, with out our belief systems of our therapies? If we were to take on an evaluative process that looks at what the customer wants what would we find out??

How do we do this? How do we evaluate what the customer/client wants? In business we ask? So if I were to ask you to explore with your client, what has helped them through a tough time, or assisted them with dealing with mental health issues, emotional health, or some kind of crisis? I know this may seem familiar to some of you but if you could bear with me I think what I am asking is something different, even if you think you have done this before, take time to consider the question from an evaluative framework of what works? I can honestly say if you ask this question it is not often people will tell you it was a modality that worked. In fact I do not remember when asking this question of a client, friend or colleague ever answering in this way.

More often than not and I speak only from my experience in working with people, the answer has been related to something simple, yet powerful that the individual connects with. This can include connecting with the therapist, or more commonly connections may include - a loved one, friends, community, employment, study, a dog or animal, a belief, self, nature, history, a new learning, a spiritual journey, faith, concern, home, family, the future, a cause etc. Is this information important? I believe, scary I know, I believe, based on my own thoughts, my own experiences, and even though I could ask you to look at research that supports this theory, based on different modalities and clinical applications, I have not because I am asking you to explore this, I am asking you to consider this, I am not trying sell or convince you to use a truth based or evidence based concept, I am not writing an academic paper. This is just an idea that I would like you to consider. Ask your client what has worked in the past? What is working now? Or what will work in the future?

I have found it useful, to work with people and connections, and in doing so I form a understanding of what works from the clients experience of what works, this has amazing outcomes. If you think back you may even notice that you will recognise responses from people you know, that directly relate to their connections, such as a person may say I did it for my kids, or I had to because that is what I believe, I was told to by God etc..., getting in touch with nature, just having someone to believe in.. , just believing in....., having faith that things were going to get better. I am sure if you take the time, you can think of many more instances of what people say is useful to them, these will be in my opinion connections people have made in the history of your experiences or connections that you may have heard about.

I wonder what would happen if every modality, every therapist, no matter their background, education, or belief system, started asking the client what connections the clients have found to be useful? In a language that is meaningful to the client e.g. what has worked before? I am sure we all work in unique and different ways with skills that are useful, that every therapy will be at one time or another more popular or evidence based than the other, I would like to think that we all agree that the one common resource in the room no matter the therapist or the therapy is the client, and that to think that we all make use of that resource, with the best interests of the client in mind may be a significant breakthrough in what we all do across our practices and our modalities.