Therapy did the opposite of what I wanted!

Clients come wanting X, yet in therapy often discover the opposite of X is the route to self-acceptance and growth.

Some want to be less angry. Or more in control. Less negative. More masculine. Less weird. More ambitious. Less… etc. These are all variants of wanting to be something other than one is, a misapprehension famously expressed in the Paradoxical Theory of Change (Beisser, 2019). According to which, change happens when a person becomes what they are, not when they try to become what they are not.

In it’s most spontaneous form this means that an issue – once made vibrantly clear – will result in a “spontaneous flip to something new, often what seems to be the opposite from the original position.” (Broughton, 2010).

That said, the reversal usually plays out quite gradually. Client A wanted to be less angry, yet six months later ended therapy committed to being more angry, just better at experiencing it and employing it productively.

B wanted to feel more positive. She soon came to realize that her negative feelings were the authentic expression of her life story (and were a reliable driver for change). C wanted to be more manly and stoic. He came to value his “feminine” qualities as allowing of a much more connective and adult way of being. D wanted more control over his extensive network of responsibility towards others, only to slowly realise that he already had too much. Letting go of some control allowed others to experience his trust, and allowed him to feel more attuned and present to them and to himself.

Behind this pattern there often lurks a “distress in search of an explanation” (Heller and Lapierre, 2012). The client is perhaps carrying a lifelong sense of being at odds. A “nameless dread” of which they might be partially conscious or which may lie fully outside of their awareness. To get a handle on this indefinable sense and finally do something with it, the client develops a “designated issue”, something that finally appears possible to articulate. “I need more control”, “people think I’m weird”, “I’m not thin enough”, etc. A named problem that – if only it could be solved – would do away with the unnameable feelings.

This becomes the script with which they enter therapy. More often than not it is “imprecise and vague, sometimes even impossible or impractical.” (Broughton, 2010).

Yet attempting to solve the designated issue may be a false goal – a focus on symptom or desire rather than process or cause. A Whac-A-Mole goal that might be better attended to or defused by exploring and even welcoming its opposite. This dynamic may not in-itself fully address the “nameless dread”, but it opens an inquiry into its origin and can be the beginning of the deeper work of living in a way that is free of its legacy.

From wanting to be “not me” to accepting yourself “as me” may be a long journey. But it’s worth asking yourself at any stage beforehand or along the way: can I imagine letting go of my script and giving myself the permission to do the opposite?