That’s obvious!
That’s obvious! A lot of therapy is about working with the obvious in a new way. Only rarely do my clients come up with something unknown about themselves. The real work is in coming to a new relationship to what they already know. Sometimes the work of the therapist – and the client – is to state what is in plain sight, in a way that clarifies the situation. The strange thing is that sometimes it takes some exploration to find the obvious. A recent example: I was working with a client about their relationship to their spouse. As we got deeper, I said, you would like to be with them in a new way. This brief sentence caught our attention. It summarized what they were wanting, and became explicit in the moment. Because it arose out of very personal material, it was tailor made for this person. I offered this phrase to the client in an invitational way. I was pretty sure it was significant, but I never really know until the client checks it for themselves. This one was a fit and I am sure it is a theme we will return to. But it took some effort to find this guiding...
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