Compass Therapy partners with other
theories of counseling so that therapists are encouraged to draw upon their own
approaches and clinical experience, even while applying compass tools. This
means that therapist creativity, as well as sensitivity to the unique needs of
each counselee, work together to determine the growth strategy that a therapist
selects.
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| Psychotherapy |
Here is a sample growth strategy that may prove helpful when working with Dependent
counselees.
Therapy with the Dependent Pleaser
usually starts well and proceeds rapidly for a few sessions, since the Pleaser
wants to feel your approval. This is a good time to build rapport and lay the
foundation for Strength and Assertion by commending any insights the person
expresses or behavioral qualities they show that reveal the least bit of
individuality.
The next step is to integrate
psychodynamic insights with the kind of parenting they experienced, how they
handled any brothers and sisters, and when they first noticed the onset of
marked dependent behavior. Now is the time to let them talk about possible
advantages of dependency, submissiveness, and non-competitiveness—what they
gained from these behaviors and how the behaviors seemed to work for them at
the time. This leads naturally into an exploration of the disadvantages of
one-sided dependency: the opportunities they missed, the ways certain people
took advantage, the lack of social visibility, the secret loneliness that came
with a lack of identity, and the lack of assertion and confidence that they
admired in others but lacked in themselves.
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| Dependent Personailty Disorder |
The novice therapist can get trapped in
this phase of exploration and discussion by not shifting into the next phase of
active coaching and skill building. In other words, while the Pleaser will
comply with superficial talking therapy, sometimes giving the therapist what
the therapist seems to want, they will begin to resist active
strength-enhancement and assertiveness training steps.
Here lies the difference between
therapy that meanders in undifferentiated directions and therapy that moves
forward in providing counselees what is needed to outgrow defeating patterns.
To move into the action phase of
therapy, you maintain rapport and conversational ease, but add the ingredient
of behavioral experiments. Just as a coach training athletes, you teach and
encourage counselees to handle current interpersonal relationships in new ways
that bring gradual advances in personal presence. “What were you feeling when
Judy said that to you…How could you have handled her more assertively…?” “When
Ben picked you up thirty minutes late, what did you really want to say to him?”
“When you wanted to change banks and the teller frowned at you, how might you
have held your ground instead of capitulating?”
To outgrow habitual responses, the
counselee needs new perceptions to support this risk-taking. For instance, the
counselee says, “My buddy Jason wants to borrow my new car, but he’s wrecked
two other cars and I don’t trust him. What can I say?” The therapist suggests,
“This is probably one of those instances that everybody faces if they’re going
to becoming more of an individual. You just tell him the truth and then relax
your body and breathing to help counter your usual anxiety. And you say in your
head, ‘There, I’ve stood up for myself and Jason can think what he wants about
it. But I feel great that my car won’t get wrecked!’”
By now the counselee is getting
acclimated to transferring insights and growth suggestions from therapy
sessions into real life. Although there will be occasional relapses, you can
show patience when they occur, stop long enough to troubleshoot them, and keep
focused on complimenting the counselee for any increments of change in the
directions of Assertion and Strength.
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| Dependent Personality Disorder |
Eventually, when the counselee has
become fairly adept at self-preservation and self-expression, the question will
arise about how to integrate newfound strengths with the lower quadrants of
Love and Weakness. After all, the counselee doesn’t want to change from a
clinging vine to a know-it-all arrogant bully.
So you now use cognition, emotion,
physiology, and spirituality to cover the new ground of how to apologize or
make amends if the counselee shows too much aggression, and how to experience
forgiveness and caring for those in the counselee’s life who are making
behavioral adjustments to the counselee’s use of the LAWS of the Self Compass.
For example, your counselee’s friend
Jason may make a promise that he doesn’t keep. You guide your counselee to form
a rhythm between Love and Assertion, first by calling Jason on his misbehavior.
If Jason develops a reliable track record, then the counselee can move toward
trusting again. But if Jason lies or makes another shallow promise, the
counselee firms up the self-boundary by assessing whether further trust is
warranted. A mature quality of love with discernment replaces the naïve
gullibility of the dependent pattern.
You can tell when you are nearing
completion of therapy, because there is less need for the therapist to guide
sessions, and more autonomy with less distraction in the counselee’s life. At
this time you can move from once a week to every two or three weeks, to help
the counselee make a successful separation and get on with life beyond therapy.
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