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The Skeptical Client
A practitioner recently asked me something that many of us have wondered: “Can I only help people who ‘get’ my work? If clients are skeptical, will their inner resistance block my efforts? Should I refer them elsewhere?”
This is such an important question, and the answer might surprise you.
My perspective: when a client comes to you feeling deeply skeptical about somatic work – I’m not talking about healthy questions or wanting to understand your approach better, but that hemming-and-hawing, “I don’t know if I should do this” kind of skepticism – you’re not dealing with a cognitive problem.
You’re looking at a nervous system state.
If story follows state, then their skepticism might actually be coming from dysregulation. It might be coming from a survival mechanism within them.
Think about it: they’re being asked to open themselves up to a relative stranger and work with them in a way they don’t fully understand. Of course their nervous system might be activated!
Instead of seeing their skepticism as a personality trait (“she’s just a skeptical person”) or taking it personally (“she’s out to get me”), we can get curious about what nervous system state they’re in.
Are they in fight or flight? Freeze? Shutdown?
Here’s the shift: instead of trying to convince them cognitively, instead of taking their skepticism as an assault on your work, you can recognize that there’s a human being in front of you who is struggling with something.
And the greatest gift you can offer them is your regulated nervous system.
You take a deep breath. You take in their skepticism, their whole being as a person, and you say to yourself: “I can be with that. Maybe it triggered something in me, and I can be with whatever activation that brought up within me, and I can be here for them as they are.”
When you can see their skepticism for what it is – a dysregulated nervous system state rather than a personal attack – everything changes.
By helping them come back to a little bit more regulation, a little bit more safety within their system, their story will change. As soon as their story changes, they’ll be more open to hearing things differently and responding from their adult self rather than old protective patterns.
This understanding of how to work with client resistance through nervous system attunement rather than cognitive persuasion is fundamental to what we explore in B’Etzem.
Just 12 days until B’Etzem Level 1 begins. Ready to develop this level of clinical sophistication with client dynamics?
Prefer to speak with me first? I’d love that! Send me an email and we’ll find a time to talk.
How do you currently work with client skepticism or resistance? What would shift if you approached it as nervous system information rather than cognitive opposition?
With deep respect for all nervous system states,
Rena
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