What A Gift You Are

“What a gift you are”; I remember when I heard these words directed at me after sitting down and sharing with someone the many roles I play in my family and community.  These words stayed with me long after the conversation.  Like a warm blanket, they comforted me.  I began to feel a prodding from God to use the blanket with others…”what a gift you are”.   Imagine for a minute will you, the vulnerability it takes to pick up a phone and reach out for help, drive to an unfamiliar office and sit down and talk to a complete stranger about the deepest darkest places you would like more than anything to avoid talking about.  And then they look at you and extend the blanket “what a gift you are”.

I have learned more about how to see and value God’s people as a therapist than I ever did before.   Sitting with the hurting, confused, scared and offering hope, comfort, companionship.  But until I started looking for “the gift”, I often ended up experiencing what we often call resistance, blocking, stagnancy in the therapeutic process.  In all honesty, I would find myself blaming the client “they weren’t ready”, “that’s an addict for ya”, “they just have a crazy schedule”.   Looking back, they ‘felt’ what I was missing “what a gift you are”.

 In class they called it content vs. process.  I never quite got that concept.  Now I get it…process is seeing the gift.  Process is seeing and understanding the unique gift this person is to this world, and holding that with the understanding of how privileged I am to be allowed to share in their gift of vulnerability.    As a rule, we guard our hurts, disappointments, fears from others; sometimes even our spouse and closest trusted friends.  As a therapist, I now recognize that when a person shares these with me, it is like seeing a rare jewel rarely experienced by anyone else, and I should tread accordingly.  “What a gift you are”.  Learning to get out of the content (paying attention to the specifics and details of a conversation) and into the process (recognizing and highlighting the gift) takes both a shift in mindset and a level of intentionality. 

I call the process of therapy identifying, highlighting and respecting the unique gift of either a person or a system.   

Specifically tending to the process includes listening for the following clues:  

       1. how the conversation is occurring (metacommunications- body language, tone, facial               expressions, etc.),  

       2. underlying emotions heard in content, 

       3. patterns themes in conversation.

How do we get out of content into process?

-        *  Listen for the clues (mentioned above) Some examples: “Your voice tells me that you are really angry about this incident” or “Your body language is telling me that this issue really exhausts you.  It feels really heavy” 

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*  Point out what you are seeing in body language, tone, or facial expressions…ESPECIALLY if it is incongruent to the content.   Ex. “You are telling me everything is fine, however you face is telling me something different.  Tell me a little more about what your face is telling me.” Or “I hear you laughing about this event that took place last week, and I also see tears in your eyes like you are right on the brink of crying.  Would you like to share more about that?”

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        * When a client switches topics or tries to stuff emotions, you take a deep breath and say something like “where we were going is probably really hard and scary, I’m ready to listen when you are ready to talk about it” or “you were about to talk about something really hard, let’s try talking about a little of it today and you can stop whenever you need too and we will pick it back up next time”. 

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*  Ask permission : “I’ve noticed you mentioned loneliness several times in our session so far today would it be okay if we talked more about loneliness today? “ or “This is the third or fourth time I’ve heard you mention _____ it sounds like it’s something that is really got you stuck, with your permission I’d be happy to flush it out more with you”.

Consider thinking of these clues as ‘gifts’.  Client’s way of giving you glimpses into the ‘gift they really are’.  When you are able to catch, highlight, and reflect on the gifts you have done two things in the therapeutic process: 1) you have said “I see you, hear you, and am beginning to really understand who you are” 2) you slow down everything so that client’s experience “what a gift you are” and begin to recognize this truth even for themselves.