Bill Is a 42-Year-Old Caucasian

Bill is a 42-year-old Caucasian male who has recently become unemployed. He has worked for 12 years as a therapist, then as a supervisor of a mental health facility, and now feels he is seen as too old to be hired again in this kind of position. Bill feels stuck and fairly pessimistic about his future. He cannot afford to retire yet but is very unsure as to what he should do next. Bill is not married and does not have any children.

At the beginning stages of therapy, Gerard Egan (2010) advises that the therapist maintains a posture of active empathy, listening to the client yet challenging irrational statements or destructive thinking patterns. Acknowledging the client's feelings, such as Bill's depression and sense of emptiness, without validating Bill's irrational belief that he is too old to move forward in his life and find a new career is essential. During the first stage, "Clients are often reluctant or resistant at this stage, therefore the therapist helps them to explore new perspectives, challenges negative modes of thinking and constructively challenges the client's excuses, evasiveness, distortions and negative self-statements" (Nelson 2011).

Because of his therapeutic background Bill may be especially impatient with the idea of being told what he may feel he already knows. Bill is likely harboring doubts about his personal self-worth. This attitude manifests itself in his reluctance to seek other work and his self-defeating attitude towards his age. The therapist must separate Bill's job search from his worth as a person, and examine Bill's underlying attitudes which link success at work with personal esteem.

Stage II involves a more focused approach, setting goals such as encouraging Bill to take inventory of his current vocational skills and helping Bill decide if he wants to continue to be a therapist (Nelson 2011). The therapist will probe deeper -- why is Bill experiencing such a crisis of meaning that he would prefer to retire than seek another job? Did Bill find his work fulfilling as a therapist? Did he experience depression even when he was working or fantasize about other types of employment? The therapist must help Bill see himself in another way, pressing Bill beyond Bill's current concept of himself as a failure. Always, the therapist must be prepared for client discomfort when being challenged, given that the client may feel betrayed by the therapist whom he believed was on 'his side.' The therapist begins the process of divergent thinking by pressing the client off the tracks of his current thinking pattern, which often brings forth the client's anger and resentment. Then, during the third stage, when the therapist helps the client define and achieve new goals, that divergent thinking begins to become especially important. Bill's singular, one-track focus upon his old job must be shifted in Stage I and Stage II (Nelson 2011). During Stage III a more concrete plan can be framed for the future. Bill must weigh the costs and benefits of different career paths, both within the field of therapy and outside of it. As he has no dependants, going back to school might be one option. Or, he might wish to enter private practice. Working at a lower level and hoping to move up a career ladder at a new facility, is still a possible option, despite Bill's former reservations. The therapist must try to interpret if Bill's initial despair about finding similar work was due to a hidden dislike of the job, or fear of seeking out a new career.

For example, a Stage I dialogue might go as follows:

Bill: I feel so old. I'm a failure, washed up.

Therapist: When didn't you feel too old to be a therapist?

Bill: I guess when I was just starting out.

Therapist: What has changed since then?

Bill: I don't know. This rejection.

Therapist: Do you miss your old job, or are you more hurt by the rejection?

Bill: I don't know. Both. Well, I guess in a way, the rejection. The job was kind of getting to me.

Therapist: What would be your ideal job if you faced no restrictions?

Bill: I'm not sure, I never thought about it before.

(pause)

Bill: I'd really prefer to go back to private practice, if I was going to be a therapist again. Not having to deal with all of that administrative B.S.

Therapist: What are you doing to change your situation?

Bill: (laughs nervously). Sending out resumes on Monster.com.