A client's behavior" or a student's attempt of resistance also may appear "calculated to alienate the very people to whom they had come for help in the first place." but, more often than not, it is not calculated, merely the way the client attempts to protect him or herself from upsetting and necessary changes. This is why Rothstein calls counseling a dance of resistance strategies, or pas de deux of difficulty and hurt feelings, not only on the part of the client but also on the part of the counselor. In other words, the counselor does not merely inflict questions or harm upon the counseled individual, nor does the individual stay there as a passive recipient of such queries. The notion of resistance means a fighting back, and the counselor or instructor may get emotionally hurt in the process.

So long as this injury is not a real or emotional flesh wound, and is taken with a grain of salt, Rothstien says, such mutuality in the exchange between client and counselor can actually enrich the overall process. Of course, different therapists, depending on their background, respond to resistance in differing ways. Psychodynamically oriented therapists tend to work through the resistance, using the relationship between the client and the therapist as the vehicle for the work," although such a methodology can often be exhausting for the therapist as well as the client....

"Behaviorists tend to see the issue as one of non-compliance and alter their assignments accordingly, making assignments more specific to the task and taking smaller steps in order to reach a larger goal," a detached approach that can benefit an individual therapist's sanity as well as his or her client.
The setting of the therapeutic situation must also be taken into account, however, as "most family therapists view resistance as a family's 'unique way of cooperating,' seeing the dance among members of a family as the way in which balance is maintained. Interventions are then designed to change one part of the system, so that all other parts will realign." But such an assumption can only really be made in a family situation, when all of the nuclear elements of the family are seen interacting, so the therapist can be assured such a dance has at least the potential to become mutually healthy and beneficial for all participants. All in all, Rothstein provides a balanced and sobering analysis to an often-frustrating aspect of the counseling process, one that can translate to the classroom, a social worker's office, as well as to the psychoanalyst's couch.

Works Cited

Rothstein, Jeff (June 2000) "Is Handling Client Resistance a Pas De Deux?" Issue 9. Journal of Family Planning. http://www.fpanet.org/journal/articles/2000_Issues/jfp0600-art9.cfm