Speaker 1: the challenge of the skill of challenge.

Speaker 2: I see what you did there, Ken. Very good. And yeah, it's an interesting skill. And I'm gonna be honest, I think it's a skill that some practitioners, certainly students, find a bit challenging. I know I've said it. Wah, wah, wah. I've said it. Because it feels, it can feel so incongruous. You know, when we're, when, you know, initially we talked about, you know, the necessary and sufficient conditions, if you're learning person-centered or any relational model, the idea that you would challenge your client seems a bit kind of, you know, wrong. But there are some times that we have to challenge clients. And it struck me that actually, now a lot of practitioners are working in a blended way, both face-to-face and online. The online world may need a little more challenge. And certainly it may need, it may, we may need to think about how we do that. But, you know, first of all, Ken, let's think of why we would challenge a client. You know, what are the things that we challenge a client for? And I can think, I can think of one off the top of my head. You know, if a client came into the room and they may be clearly under the influence of medication, prescribed medication, street drugs, or alcohol. And, you know, they are not in a place that they can actually, you know, make psychological contact and, you know, continue the session.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they may be late for the session and have given no notice and arrived 20 minutes late for the session. There would be room for inquiry, maybe a gentle challenge there as well. And I think that you touched on a really important point when it comes to challenge, Rory, is that we need to look at our modality. Challenge is modality specific. So if you were working as a cognitive behavioral therapist, the challenge would be different. Somebody might not do the homework that was assigned to them and you would be looking to challenge that because without them doing that work, their progress would be hampered. I think when we look to person-centered, I think that is where there is a gray area. And I've seen, you mentioned with students struggling with challenge, I've actually seen conversations out in social media where certain people are saying, well, you can't really challenge in person-centered because it's client-led and the client is leading the way. And, you know, I look at that and maybe I just have a small smile on my face as I look at it, because of course, person-centered therapy is all about challenge because Carl Rogers recognized that there is an incongruence within a client where they feel one thing inside, but there'll be showing something differently outside. You know, they're almost playing a part within the world, being the person that other people want them to be as opposed to being their real self. And part of that process is challenging that incongruence. And even if that is done in a very, very gentle way or maybe a little more directive, there is an element of challenge in person-centered therapy.

Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Ken. And as Roger's famously alluded to, you know, when, you know, the person who can accept themselves can change and grow. And I think that part of that challenge may be helping the clients accept themselves. And I want to touch on what you said about CBT, about, you know, not doing the homework, but actually the homework itself could be challenging. You know, the homework itself could be challenging. And if we look to theories like Gestalt, things like two-chair work, doing the experiments, top dog, underdog, they're all a form of challenge there. They're meant to put the clients in a position where they have to, you know, a grasp and a kind of move towards personal growth. Self-actualization by its very nature is challenging. So it really is built in to therapy. But I think it, as always in any relationship and any therapy, there's a relationship. And I think it's about how that challenge is done. You know, when we challenge, we do it with maybe high challenge, but high support. We underpin the discomfort of what's being said by understanding how it may be received and how difficult it could be for someone to hear that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, very, very much so. And I guess, you know, looking at the different models as you've mentioned there, Rory, if you're looking at transactional analysis, you may challenge somebody about what ego state they might've been at that moment. You know, you may within the interaction say, hmm, and it seemed like you were maybe in the child ego state there. And that's a challenge. It's a challenge with the work being, I guess, to lift from that child ego state. And again, back to person-centered therapy, where there is challenge within the relationship. What is interesting for me is that in a person-centered manner, when you are walking with that person, you're empathic with them, unconditional positive regard. You're not judging who they are or where they are or even what they bring. So you're not challenging any part of that. But again, going into that incongruence, a person might say, oh, I'm feeling absolutely distraught and, but I present at work telling everybody that I'm fine. And the challenge might be, you know, inside you're feeling absolutely broken, but you find that you're presenting yourself outside as, oh, I'm okay, and I wonder how that is for you. That's a challenge. That's a challenge to look at one, the other. It's a challenge on that incongruence and maybe a gentle challenge and maybe wouldn't be seen, I'm putting inverted commas here, as a challenge as some would understand it, but it is a form of gentle challenge. And I guess when we think about challenge, we started off by saying under the influence of alcohol, arriving late. These are based in, I guess, the management of the practice rather than in the therapeutic relationship. We wouldn't go into a therapeutic relationship if psychological contact was not possible because the person was influenced in some way by a substance. And those kinds of challenges would maybe be around what was contracted. If we'd contracted on a given time, it would be quite a direct challenge. It would be, we agreed on this, but I'm recognizing this. And then there might be a recontracting around that. So a person is late 20 minutes, no heads up was given that they might be late. And then they may present and say, well, I was stuck in traffic and that's all good and well, but maybe they could have sent a text or maybe they could have called through their hands-free kit or something like that. So it might be worth revisiting what the contract says about that so that there is once again, a mutual respect for the time boundaries that have been set. But of course, outside of the management of the session, there is the challenge that happens within the session itself. And I guess that is a different kind of challenge. So we are working with different kinds of challenge, different flavors of challenges, counselors, psychotherapists.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. And thinking about the online world, you may need to use challenge more than you think. We know about John Sula's disinhibition effect where people may have fantasy relationships with their therapist, certainly on the phone. One of the things that's now being recognized in the online world is certainly by phone, people who do phone only is that kind of fantasy attachment where the person's talking to another voice on the phone and they build a whole attachment and fantasy of who the therapist is. And that might lead to some quite interesting roads. The transference could be seen as a father or mother figure or even a romantic figure because there's no kind of frame of reference. So I think there's challenge there. And also for those people who work through video platforms, the challenge may be that somebody turns up, shall we say, in a state of dress that isn't appropriate for a counseling session. And I'm not saying we should tell our clients how to dress, but I do think that if a client turns up undressed, which could happen, that maybe we need to challenge that and speak about it. And certainly little things like, the client undertaking counseling by doing other things. They may be cooking a meal and having counseling and you might want to say, I understand you've got things to do, but actually this space is for you to actually talk about what's going on for you. And I can see that you're cooking lunch. So again, that would be a challenge. And I wonder, Ken, if the idea of challenge and how therapists use challenge is probably more predominant online than face-to-face. I'm not sure, what do you think?

Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that there's maybe more practice management challenge. So what you've just been mentioning there is all about practice management challenge where somebody is attending online therapy from their car on the way to drop the kids off because they've been running a bit late and I hope you don't mind. Well, of course we're going to challenge that. It's not appropriate for them to be able to engage in their therapy. But I think once in the actual sessions itself, it becomes the therapeutic challenge, which is different. The therapeutic challenge is different to challenge around the contract or them not being there or arriving late or being under the influence. And the skill of challenge is at its most effective when it is a therapeutic challenge, when we're working therapeutically in service of the client where the challenge is not, well, it is there for them to, I guess, reconsider, look at something a little bit differently, maybe re-examine something. And I think that can be really, really powerful. And I'm going to give an example of therapeutic challenge. And I'm going to use a person-centered model here just to keep to the theme of that you might not use challenge in person-centered and show you where challenge would be highly appropriate in the following scenario. And this is something that we'll present often. And you will, if you're in practice, you will have seen it. And if you're not in practice and you're going into practice, you're going to see this. And it's when a client presents with a painful part of their life. So they're telling you some heavy material, something that has got some weight to it, some pain to it. And as they're telling you, they're kind of got a bit of a giggle and like almost a nervous laugh that comes out. And that is a coping mechanism. It is a coping mechanism that we will put out. And what we want to avoid is colluding with a client there and mirroring that laugh or that small giggle. But what we can do is we can listen intently with empathy and we can say, you know, Rory, as you were saying that, I couldn't help but feel the weight of that emotion you're carrying. But I noticed as you were saying it, you were laughing. There's a challenge. I'm saying, look at that emotion you're bringing, but look at what you're showing externally. Again, it's that incongruence. I'm feeling something inside, but I'm showing something different outside. And that can be really effective, a therapeutic challenge, where that person can receive that and go, wow, yes, actually, maybe that's a nervous laugh. And I've heard that a number of times in therapy. I think it's a nervous laugh. I don't know what else to do. And now you're in the material. I hear you say that the laugh is kind of from nerves and that you don't know what other options might be available for you. And there, you're giving that space for them to maybe consider that, maybe look for other alternatives, a different way of presenting that. Yeah, there's an example of therapeutic challenge.

Speaker 2: I think that's a great example. And I think that with trauma-informed work, when you're working with clients who may be disassociating or they may be moving back to an earlier developmental age within the session, one of the challenge when we're using grounding techniques is to bring them into the here and now, not the there and then. Of course, we acknowledge the there and then, but the here and now is where they actually exist. And I have said to clients, I hear what you're saying, but you are in a safe space. That person isn't in your life anymore. And you're not a child, you're an adult. And that is quite challenging. And I want to share a story of challenge that I heard from, not a client, but someone I worked with many years ago who was recovering from substance misuse. And he went to see a counsellor and he'd used a substance before he went. And the counsellor could obviously tell he'd used the substance. And halfway through the session, the person I knew said, I'm going to have to leave now because I've got to go and babysit my kids. And the counsellor said, I wouldn't let you look after my kids in the state you're in. And I thought at the time, oh my gosh, that is such a challenge. I'm not sure I would have done it. However, it was an eye-opener for the person that I knew. And it was a catalyst of change. He really, somebody held a mirror up to him and it was like, oh my goodness, am I in that such a state because I've used it? And it actually set him on the path of recovery. So, I think don't underestimate challenge, but think about how it's used. And I think as it comes down, if you're a student, practice it. Practice, practice, practice.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and the example that you've used there, Rory, you've gone to recovery. Yeah. And recovery is by nature a challenging process. And those that work in recovery will know, I worked in recovery for some years, that you will use high challenge within the recovery journey. You have to, it's part of the way of working with recovery. And it is, again, it's about, challenge does not mean telling somebody they're doing something wrong. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is. When we're talking about maybe somebody arriving late or we're not really telling them that they're doing it wrong but we're kind of highlighting it and going, hmm, I wonder if we could look at this. Therapeutic challenge can be positive. So, an example of therapeutic challenge that is positive is where we might use where a person was and where a person is now. As you're saying that, Rory, I'm now acting, of course, the counsellor and for those that don't know, can't look inside my head and see what I'm thinking. So Rory, you are now the person that is presented and I am now the counsellor reflecting back. And you've just said something. And I go, wow, Rory, as you're saying that, I can't help but think that when you first came in, you mentioned that's something you could never do, but now I noticed you've just mentioned you've done it. And that's a challenge. That is a challenge. You said this and now look, you're doing that. And when we have a moment of movement, we can use challenge with that. We can put in a challenge and challenge is not a negative thing. It's not bringing somebody up of something they were supposed to do that they didn't do. It is a therapeutic skill. And we've got a handout to help with that, to help with challenge. And you can get that handout for free. You can download the skill of challenge worksheet, which will cover some of what we've covered today and give you an understanding of that skill of challenge. And just to kind of close this off with what you said, Rory, practice it, practice challenge.

Speaker 2: Absolutely, Ken. Practice, practice, practice and get the feedback from the practice.