Ask a Psychologist: Why doesn’t my psychologist tell me what to do?
One of the most common questions that we hear as psychologist when speaking with clients is “why don’t you tell me what to do?”. Instead of providing a clear answer, A psychologists often ask more questions, understand the context, expand the topics around the challenges, speak about our usual patterns of problem solving and management. Psychologists often do not provide a directive, clear, simple answer of what to do.
The frustrations experienced by clients are understandable, as we go to therapy often with the hope of wanting to feel better quickly, solve a problem, and move forward with our lives. However, there are intricacies and complexities to what the “feeling better” means and looks like in our everyday life, especially in the long term.
The short answer is that, it is almost the easiest option for psychologist to simply tell clients what to do and give them a solution. By not handing client a script, your psychologist is not being evasive, we are indeed trying to do our job properly.
Myths of psychologists knowing it all
One of the common myths in psychological therapy is that psychologists have the answers to psychological pain and everyday emotional challenges. We often hear “you are the professional, you tell me”. Part of this is true, however, for the most part, psychologists don’t have all the answers, and we can’t predict the future. We can’t take the pain away, nor make your friends respond in a certain way just by teaching you what to say and do. This is not the goal of therapy.
Why can’t psychologists just give a solution and advice?
Our job as psychologist is not entirely about eliminating problems and pain. This is an unrealistic therapeutic goal. Our job as psychologists is to help individuals to understand how and why they encounter their emotional challenges, and help them build capacity to manage these challenges. Building capacity helps clients to learn how to use their emotional skills and muscles to tackle current and future challenges, without having to seek advice from someone else. By expanding emotional capacity and understanding, psychologists also help individuals avoid getting into vulnerable situations that perpetuate certain life problems. One of the aims of psychologist is to help clients build autonomy and confidence in managing challenges in life. If someone is told what to do every time, they would miss the opportunity to learn and grow in a meaningful way.
Everyone is different. How we manage emotions depend very much on our childhood, relationships with our primary care givers, peers, our current circumstances etc. It is crucial to work on what is the right way forward for an individual, rather than what works in general. Indeed, for the most part, a psychologist’s job is to help someone understand why a certain skill or solution doesn’t work, and to manage the barriers of applying skills and solutions.
What can a psychologist offer?
Instead of providing directive advice, there are several areas and ways that a psychologist can support an individual. Some examples are:
A psychologist can help someone identify what the “actual problem” is, rather than what seemingly may be the issue. By understanding the problem in a meaningful way, we may also identify unhelpful thinking styles that are associated with it that may conflate or disguise the actual issue. These lead to meaningful discussion of managing the problem effectively.
With a structured and evidence-based framework in mind, a psychologist makes an assessment and helps individuals clarify and build insight to how and why they experience certain emotional (or interpersonal) problems. Understanding an individual’s emotional and interpersonal patterns also helps to work on how to ascertain healthy environment and people in our lives
With the above in mind, a psychologist can also help identify the pros and cons of available options, such that an individual learns to make an informed decision.
Overall, one of the main goals of psychological therapy is to build capacity and enhance self-reliance in the long term, so that we can apply our skills at times of need. Having a psychologist is similar to having a mind personal trainer. It takes time, practice, consistency and persistence for meaningful change to occur.