When a Client Says They Are Confused

You would think by now I would know how to handle clients who struggle to understand their relationship dynamics, but I find myself making the same errors every session.

I’m writing this to try and imprint more in my brain the need to try a different approach. Let me tell you first what my hook is and what mistaken reflex I keep going to.

When a client says any of the following:

I feel so lost …

I feel so confused …

I just need some tools, I’ll do anything but I don’t know what to do …

I just don’t get it, I don’t see what I could do here to make this better …

And I routinely respond with:

I can help you with that! Let me explain your dynamic to you. Let me gently show you how your action tendency is thwarting what you need. Isn’t this good news? There is something concrete you can do differently to make this dynamic better! You are really getting what you paid for today - you’ve got a problem and I actually do have the accurate solution to your problem!

And can you guess what response I get to this 99% of the time? Sure you can. You do this work also!

Why are you just targeting me?

I feel ganged up on.

Why are you only seeing what I could do differently?

You’re not understanding my side of things.

But you don’t understand why she’s/he’s so difficult.

And you would think after 11 years of getting similar responses I would for sure not repeat this move the next time this hook happens, but inevitably I do. It’s such perfectly formed bait for my brain when a client says they are confused and need help. My brain so desperately wants to give them a literal answer to their painful confusion.

What I am trying to do now is reframe what my client is really saying, and practice a different answer. I need you to know I’m rarely successful at this right now, this is what I’m aspiring to do.

What I think clients are actually saying in these moments are:

I am at my awareness capacity and cannot see more right now. Thus, I feel confused and lost.

I wish I understood what was going on more, but also feel afraid to understand more because it might mean I need to do some scary/challenging interpersonal work.

I think it’s unfair for him/her to have more demands on me, because I’m already over-extended in how hard I’m working to make them happy. I’m saying I’m “confused” but what I’m really feeling is dismayed that my partner isn’t happier or more grateful.

So here is what I am working on responding with:

I get that you’re confused, these are complicated dynamics. What do you hear or see from your partner that most evokes this feeling? (Validate and look for trigger)

This is hard, you’ve been trying for a long time to get this right. How have you made sense of this over time, when your partner says XYZ? How have you tried to interpret it?” (Validate and look for perception)

“If this were easy, you would have solved this by now. What do you typically do when you feel confused or helpless like this?” (Validate and look for action tendency)

I’m going to practice saying these new responses out loud in the car as I drive to work, and hope I start to respond more automatically in this way versus the literal-answer way. More and more I see the futility of trying to explain and educate. Sometimes the psycho-ed can hit so right, and be so helpful for a couple, but usually this happens when I’m normalizing someone’s behavior or feelings. Explaining what might be happening because of ADHD, or how differently people’s brains work with sex, or what is happening in a caretaker dynamic can feel relieving and non-shaming for people. But I honestly can’t think of any time I’ve explained what someone can do differently where that has gone particularly well. 

I think this brings me to the acceptance I have to keep chipping away at over and over in myself. Theoretically, clients do want to know what they can do differently to have more agency and positive results in their relationship. We actually have this information. We could easily give them this information. Amazingly, this exchange doesn’t seem to work.

I have to keep reminding myself how I believe change happens within us. I am soothed and motivated by Carl Roger’s words,

“To be faced by a troubled, conflicted person who is seeking and expecting help, has always constituted a great challenge to me. Do I have the knowledge, the resources, the psychological strength, the skill - do I have whatever it takes to be of help to such an individual?

Early in my professional years I was asking the question, How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?

It is possible to explain a person to himself, to prescribe steps which should move him forward, to train him in knowledge about a more satisfying mode of life. But such methods are, in my experience, futile and inconsequential. The most they can accomplish is some temporary change, which soon disappears, leaving the individual more than ever convinced of his inadequacy.”

“On Becoming A Person,” by Carl Rogers

I continue to find that sitting with the clients, reflecting back their dilemmas, and trying to understand they are coming from good places is the most impactful work over time. Now if only I can remember this each session :)