Power in Psychotherapy: Resistance

[Mary S]

One of the subtopics in Zur’s discussion “How Psychotherapists Create Power Advantage: Rituals, professional posturing and meta-communications” is “the Misuse of the Term Resistance”. I encountered this misuse not directly in therapy, but in reading to try to make sense of my therapy that seemed more counterproductive than helpful. I read one book that had two checklists to help decide whether a client’s problems in therapy were due to incompatibility or resistance. I checked an equal number of items on each list, but there was one on the “incompatibility” list that said something like, “You are giving in to the therapist’s personality rather than to the process.” I had no idea how to answer that – so I was left with the possibility that maybe I was engaging in “resistance” (whatever that was – the checklist seemed to be the closest I could find to a definition).

But I was troubled by the use of the word “resistance” as something that seemed to indicate something negative -- that the client wasn’t cooperating or otherwise was to blame for lack of progress in therapy. In my experience prior to therapy, “resistance” had primarily been used in a positive way – eg., the French resistance in WWII; resisting peer pressure; resisting negative influences; resisting temptation. 

So it was good to see Zur’s acknowledgement that the term is often misused by therapists to “lay the blame for lack of therapeutic progress at the feet of their clients,” and points out that professionals in many fields face some kind of resistance, but they “do not seem to use it as an excuse to be paid without performing their duties effectively.” (Follow the link above for a more complete discussion.)

[Sylvester McMonkey McBean]

i too am really bothered with the term resistance in therapy and how incompetent Ts are happy to quickly throw the term at any client who is not producing the results that the T wants to see instead of pondering if it could be due to something else...i.e, the Ts lack of skills or understanding (especially when it comes to truama).  there have been many times that i may have appeared to be 'resistant' to the therapy process and methods that my T was using with me, when in actuality there have been perfectly good reasons (some even physiological/ neurological) due to the damage that my early trauma has caused and T ended up frustrated at me because of his lack of understanding and trying to fit me into the models that he knew and was trained in (which were not truama related).  

so many misunderstandings and damage can be caused to the client by this kind of incompetency, but that is ok...it wasn't the Ts fault, the client was just being 'resistant'.          

Edited February 8, 2017 by Sylvester McMonkey McBean