Q: When doing process work, which process do I attend to?
A: Well, let’s name some of the processes going on right now, here in this room:

Q: My client wants something but he doesn’t know what it is.
A: Instead of listening to him talk-about the thing he wants, invite him to talk-to or talk-with it.

Q: She has no idea what she wants from psychotherapy. The probation officer wants her to work on setting limits and establishing boundaries.
A: Her two choices appear to be a) doing what the probation officer wants or b) exploratory psychotherapy to discover what she wants.

Q: Do you suggest ever just telling a client something, that is, educating him?
A: Sure. Honor a client’s need to know. The intellect is as much a part of a person’s organism as his intuition. Often, once the intellect understands, it will give permission for the rest of the personality to begin the integrative work.

Q: I think maybe I was premature when I encouraged my client to do a deep piece of work.
A:. If you felt you were premature, then maybe you were. Take ownership however, and know that you were premature for yourself, not necessarily for him.

Q: Both a family and two separate individuals generally refuse or resist my ideas for enactments. What do I do then?
A: Whether your intervention is to ask a question, suggest an enactment, validate or reframe a point of view, interpret behavior, set up a structure, wonder about something, join with empathy, or simply sit there watching, attend to and work with the response to whatever your intervention is.

Q: Why would you accelerate a process like that? In hopes that something will happen?
A: This is where the Rogerian part of my personal psychotheory shows up. Start with the idea that no matter what an organism is doing, it is always engaged in behavior that is deemed by the psyche either to be protective or to invite movement toward the resolution of its unresolved issues. And here’s the Gestalt part: When the organism does what it is doing to the point where that process is done enough, the organism will be done doing whatever it has been doing and can get on with doing something else.

Q: All they do in session is tattle on each other. Also, none of them is able to admit to being angry or upset about anything or with anybody. So what’s a way to work with this family?
A: You already see their process. Now create interventions that use their process.

Q: You’re always saying, don’t listen to the content. How can one not?
A: When you first start driving a car, if you steadfastly focus your gaze close to the car, you will steer crookedly down the road and not see anything but what is directly in front of you. Until, that is, you crash into something because you weren’t able to anticipate what was coming.

Q: Does psychotherapy always need a witness? With high motivation, can’t all this emotional work be done at home?
A: Most of us experience many enlightening moments from time to time throughout our lives. And although we integrate what we learn into our default behavior repertoire, we usually die long before we complete all our unresolved childhood issues, let alone the existential or traumatic ones that befall us as adults.