Mailbag: Dear Rick: I have clients who are not responding to my counseling. We have met a few times now. There are so many things going on in their life that need to change, but I don’t feel at liberty to share all that I am thinking. How would you respond to them? Thanks!
Hello [Friend]
You are a humble man. Thank you for your question. Here is a principle that has served me over the years when in similar situations as yours:
You build relational bridges to carry truth over.
Another way of saying it: If there ain’t no bridge then it is hard to be straight-up and honest with them because they can be easily offended. However, if you have favor with them and there is a carefully constructed bridge then I would trot the more difficult truth across the bridge you have built.
You will need to measure the truth and weigh the truth that you carry to them to be reasonably sure the bridge does not collapse. As you know it takes a while to build a sufficient bridge to the causal core of a counselee. So many times we know more than we say in counseling because there isn’t a bridge.
Unfortunately for me I have in the past communicated truth prematurely to my clients, when there was no bridge. In such cases some of them have been offended. I’ve tried to learn over the years to slow it down, don’t be so aggressive, take your time and patiently build trust in the relationship before I share in a more transparent way. And I still fail at this. It is a wisdom and grace issue.
However, if you have favor with them, then I would be honest. Tell them the truth, as much as you can. You will have to be the judge of how much truth. There are at least two compelling reasons to speak the truth in love:
- They need to know what they are doing is wrong and the repercussions of their behavior and attitudes. And the primary repercussion, as you know, is they are dragging God’s name through the mud. He leads us in paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake. It is his name that we make great, or not. And in this case they are not. Secondarily, there are repercussions in their marriage. They need to repent.
- They also need to know the true truth of the situation so that if the counseling does cease you have made sure that one of the last things they hear from you is the bottom line truth. And when (or should) they repent sometime in the future they will remember the last thing you told them. If they are not changing then the counseling will eventually cease. And in such cases the counselor needs to make sure he gives them the most important, accurate and honest counsel. This needs to happen as you sense the end coming.
I hope this helps. There is always more to say, but email can be restricting at times. I’m grateful you would ask me to come alongside you!
Read also: How Honest Can I Be With You?
Photograph courtesy of Expressions by Bev
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