Therapists Should STOP Telling Clients What To Do

There is NO good reason Therapists should be telling their clients what to do, and it’s important we stop this before someone’s life gets ruined. (Or Someone gets SUED!) Here’s what we should do instead.

Every single therapist needs to stop telling their clients what to do. I’m going to tell you exactly what to do instead, and I’m going to give you some really good news. You already have the skill to do this. You’ve been practicing it for a very long time. But first, let me explain myself.

When I was a young kid, I had a very difficult time tying my shoes. I was 6 or 7, and I saw some kid at school who had Velcro shoes and I said, “I want those.”, because this kid does not have to tie his shoes. My mother would not buy them for me. And she made me struggle and struggle and struggle until I figured out how to tie my shoes.

And I remember one day she was explaining to someone that I need Elliott to have this skill, because I’m not always going to be around to help him tie his shoes. And I think about that constantly as I know, therapists, you guys have this urge to jump in and rescue your client, save your client, and tell them what to do. Sometimes we even think we’re doing a good thing because the client doesn’t have the skill to do the thing. So I need to tell them what to do. It’s not true.

I didn’t have the skill to tie my shoes until I did. What my mother believed was I could do it. So she let me struggle and she let me struggle and let me struggle until I got it and then I figured out how to tie my shoes.

If you keep telling your client what to do, you’re doing them a disservice, because what ends up happening is you tell them what to do and they go off and do it, but then they depend on you for the doing of it. You get the credit so they don’t get a self esteem boost. They don’t feel good about themselves, they don’t grow.

I remember the day I successfully tied my shoes. I felt like a hero. I still remember that to this day. I was a five, six, seven year old kid, and it was the first hurdle I had jumped over where my mother was refusing to help me.

You have to do that same thing for your clients. You have to let them struggle so that they experience the success and they take credit for the success.

It is not about you. It can’t be, it shouldn’t be. It needs to be about them, their growth, their work, their outcome from achieving it. Once we make it about us and we start like I told them what to do because I feel better, then we’re robbing them of growth. I’m telling you guys, I know it’s hard sometimes. The client comes in and they say stuff like, “I really need you to just tell me what to do. I’m having a hard time with this.” You have to resist the urge and help them grow through the struggle.

Now, I know that all of you already know how to do this…. How many of you parent your children in such a way that they come out on the other side better, just from the way that you treated them, just from the way that you taught them, just from the thing that you let them struggle and grow with.

So this thing that I’m asking you to do is actually not rare. It’s actually not unique. You already do it, and you do it very, very frequently, and you do it very, very well. If you jumped in and did the thing for your children every single time they hit a struggle, they would never grow. They would develop no self esteem, no sense of independence, no self belief.

So if you want your clients to truly be independent, truly be successful, truly grow, and truly have a successful outcome, you have to resist the urge of telling them what to do and instead let them grow through the struggle by encouraging them. And how we do that depends on the type of therapy that you use. But by encouraging them and supporting them, but not telling them what to do.

We cannot rob them of opportunities for growth. We cannot rob them of autonomy. We have to let our clients grow.

Another reason that you should not tell your clients what to do is because what if your suggestion actually blows up in your client’s face and ruins their life? Who do you think they’re going to blame for that? Who do you think they’re going to really let have it for that? Who do you think they’re going to come after? Even legally?

I know of a situation where this guy, this was a couple’s therapist, and this couple came to see him. The woman who was there individually told the woman that she needed to leave her husband. The husband was doing all these things, not abusive, but he was doing whatever. The woman said, “I want to help our relationship grow.” And the therapist heard all the things this person said and said, I think you should leave your husband. He’s not going to be a good husband for you. And I don’t think he’s right fit for you and all the things that he said.

We have to recognize we come from a position of authority. So if we say, “I don’t think that’s a good husband for you.”, then it absolutely turns out that people are going to listen to us, and they’re going to believe us. They’re going to recognize our authority and think that you know something about behavior, human psychology, and you must be right. And then they’re going to make decisions. So this woman decided to leave her husband.

They were going through the divorce process, and through the divorce process, one of the attorneys suggested they go see another therapist (when he heard what the other therapist had). That therapist may or may not have been me. But anyway, they go see another therapist, and while they’re going through divorce process, the other therapist helped them reconnect. The other therapist helped them heal their wounds, which are now made significantly worse, because after the therapist made this suggestion, tons of other really bad things happen, too.

So they had spent $70,000 on the divorce process before they came to see a therapist who was actually effective for them. They decided to reconcile their relationship. They called off the divorce. They had a remarriage ceremony so they could ceremonially experience this. It’s like a reset. They went on a honeymoon, and they started healing their relationship and living happily ever after.

I happen to know that a couple of years later, they filed a lawsuit against the original therapist that suggested to the woman that she leave her husband, to recoup money that they were spending on the attorneys with the divorce, which, again, was $70,000. And they won. And they won much more than the $70,000.

That therapist very shortly was no longer practicing and out of business, which maybe it was because he was not very effective. And that’s true. But I can’t even tell you how many times… I travel all around the world and I lecture therapists all over the world, and I mentor and coach therapists all over the world. Trust me when I tell you the urge to give advice is strong. The urge to tell our clients what to do is strong. But we need to resist that urge, because we are bringing liability into our lives when we don’t need to. We’re inviting liability into our lives.

You can literally do your job, and you should do your job without doing that. Our job is about growth and healing. It’s not about telling our clients what to do. It’s not about fixing their problems. Because there’s only two outcomes when you fix a client’s problem.

The first outcome is that it successfully works, but yet they give me the credit for it. And then they don’t experience the growth. They don’t experience the change. They don’t feel better about themselves.

Or, it doesn’t work, and then they blame me. And sometimes if it doesn’t work catastrophically, then they come after me. In some cases, legally, and I know of many situations, including the one I just mentioned, where the therapist ended up in court being sued based upon telling some client what to do.

So refrain. Do not do that. Trust me, you do not want to be on a witness stand trying to explain to somebody why you were giving advice, when that is actually not our mandate.

So we have to remember, our job is about healing and about growth and about change. It’s not about fixing or telling clients what to do when you’re going to find yourself in a very difficult situation, sitting on a witness stand with attorneys attacking you, trying to figure out why you told the client what to do, and the situation went very, very badly for them.