I get people who come to me to stop doing things in their lives that are not serving them. They know that what they are doing is often destroying their lives or their relationships.
It is surprising how often I get resistance to change even though the person has come to me for change. At first this does not make sense but if you look closer there is a twisted logic to it.
Firstly no matter how bad the behaviours are they have still given the person some benefits. It is also their comfort zone and they have not seen themselves as anything else for many years. In this case it makes a lot of sense to have that person see the positives of who they can be and to get them to focus on that.
Without having a sense that the future can have more positives of the past a person will find it extremely difficult to change. Without a sense of hope why would a person change?
People also think that it is the responsibility of the therapist to make the changes. It’s not! The change can only happen from within the person, all the therapist is, is a mentor and guide to facilitate change. If the thinking is that the change is going to be made by the therapist then change will not happen.