Rothstein, Jeff (June 2000) \"Is

¶ … 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

How should resistance be viewed, upon the part of the individual counselor or a teacher during the helping skill process? First and foremost, according to Jeff Rothstein, LCSW, the act of resistance should not be resisted on the part of the counselor. He states that "to me, resistance is a sign you are getting somewhere," that is you, the counselor, teacher or therapist. This means that resistance upon the part of all helping individuals "should be responded to as a speed bump rather than a stop sign. To shut down or resist" the queries of the therapist or counselor "may be an adaptive attempt by the client to maintain a sense of control over their circumstances," a sense of control that ultimately is merely a reinforcement of ineffectual life strategies that they are actively seeking help from the counselor to alleviate. (Rothstein, 2000)

In other words, Rothstein reiterates the common Freudian trope that analysts and therapists should not remain in the patient's or learner's comfort zone, but for the sake of the patient poke at the discomforting contradictions and fissures that exist within the patient's consciousness and way of relating to the world. It is in the lapses or the slips for the young and old that must be provoked, for an individual to make progress during any counseling session. Resistance says Rothstein may come in active and argumentative forms, as well as passive forms of silence and less obtrusive strategies of resistance. The counselor or teacher during the helping skills process must be aware of these strategies and highlight them for the patient's sake.

Rothstein generalizes this notion of psychological resistance as a common mental tactic that all individuals use, whether aware of it or not, when they are learning something new. Resistance is not a tool simply for 'sick' or psychologically disturbed individuals undergoing analysis, but for individuals being counseled for scholastic or even financial reasons or simply individuals whom are experiencing frustration with change. The author acknowledges the difficulty for the counselor or teaching individual to proceed through such discomfort and resistance, for "resistance feels personal," even for the most trained counselors, causing the counselor to "feel frustrated, insecure, intolerant or at times actively" prone to "rejecting clients" for deploying this frustrating strategy. Because it is so common, and because the therapist may encounter it and deploy it in his or her own daily life, it is easy to have a personal and emotional, rather than a professional reaction to displays of resistance, even if the counselor or therapist is aware that the apparent attack or withdrawal has little to do with the therapeutic relationship, and more to do with the client's outside difficulties and difficulties in coping with learning something new.

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.