STOP BELIEVING your CLIENT – The Secret to Dr. Now\’s Success

I know it sounds crazy but you\’ve got to trust me, believing your clients is not only the biggest pitfall you can face in a therapy session but it\’s also a big obstacle to their own progress. Let\’s break down how you can work with a client while believing IN them instead of simply believing their words.

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The absolute worst thing you can do as a psychotherapist in your sessions is believe your clients. Now, before you run to the comments and tell me how crazy I am, let me explain.

So one of the things about me, most people don\’t know this, but I\’m going to tell you a little Elliott secret is I don\’t work well in silence. I need some background music or some movie I\’ve seen a thousand times playing in the background. It helps me concentrate.

I think the reason that that\’s true is I grew up in a very small house. I was one of three boys, so there was always something going on around me. So now I need stuff in order to concentrate. Just how it works.

So what I do. And right in front of me, and Dennis, we\’ll show the people here, but right in front of me, I\’ve got three screens. The first screen is the one I\’m working on. The second screen is what I\’ll be using for resources, like when I\’m writing a book, there\’ll be my citations there. Then the third screen, which is important. I usually have my movies or whatever TV show or streaming it\’s on.

And I\’ve recently gotten into a show called My 600 lb. Life. Now, if you\’ve never seen this show, it\’s about a doctor in Houston, Texas, that is a weight loss surgery expert. And people come from all over the world for him to do bariatric sleeves and stomach staple surgery, all the things that help people lose weight. And I\’m talking like, These people weigh six-, seven-, eight-hundred-pounds. Massive, massive, massive.

But here\’s where it highlights how important it is that you don\’t believe people when they\’re talking to you in session.
Well, number one, believing or not believing is judgment. And it\’s not my job to judge.

So if someone tells me something like I\’m not the one in the role of being able to decipher whether that\’s true or not. I think psychotherapists somehow get into this mindset where it\’s up to them that they have to figure out whether the client is telling the truth or not. That\’s not the case. That\’s not the case. So that\’s thing number one.

But thing number two, which is really important, is usually clients are much more fluent in telling you about their limitations and not their capabilities. Especially when we meet people after they\’ve been through something very challenging. When you\’ve faced a challenge, you often are so intimidated, afraid, and impacted by the challenge that you forget your own strength in the process.

And what this show highlights. So people go all over the world to work with Dr. Now, that\’s the guy\’s name, in Houston, Texas, and get this weight loss treatment, surgery. And every single episode, this person, man, they\’ve been through horrible traumas, developed a massive food addiction. In order to weigh 700 pounds, you have to be consuming a mass amount of food, and you have to use food as a crutch to deal with traumas and abuse and abandonment. I mean, some of the things that have happened in these people\’s lives have been unbelievable.

But in every episode, someone lets them know that, like, your life is in peril. You got to get this fixed. Then they reach out to Dr. Now and they go for an assessment. They go for an initial assessment, and they\’re saying, \”Hey, I want this weight loss surgery.\” Doctor Now always says, \”No, I\’m not going to do the weight loss surgery until you show me you\’re serious. So I\’m going to give you this plan, and I want you to follow this plan for the next two months. And in that two months, I want you to lose 80 pounds. Because at that large weight, literally just reducing the amount of calories you take and doing small exercises, you should be able to lose weight. And if you can lose the 80 pounds in two months, then I\’ll think you\’re serious and doing the surgery is not a waste of time.\”

And every single time, the people go home with this plan given by the doctor and they cry and they get scared and they say, \”I can\’t do it.\” That\’s what they say, \”I can\’t do this.\”

These are people. I was watching one episode, this guy went to McDonald\’s. He ordered. I\’m gonna try to remember his order. I literally rewound it so I could listen to it. He ordered two quarter pounders with cheese, a 10 piece chicken nuggets, a spicy chicken sandwich, a double cheeseburger, a large French fry. He ordered a chocolate milkshake and an apple pie and I think a couple of other things. But if you add that all up, that\’s like 10,000 calories.

Then they go on Dr. Now\’s plan and he limits them to 1200 calories a day. That\’s a massive drop. And as they\’re sitting there eating their grilled chicken or their fish or their salad, \”I can\’t do this.\” comes out of their mouth. \”I can\’t do this. This is too tough. I cannot do this.\” But then the show follows these people for a year. And oftentimes, not every time, but oftentimes, they go from weighing 700 pounds in that one year to weighing 480 pounds.

Now 480 pounds is still really obese and they still got work to do. But that\’s a heck of an accomplishment in that year. And you know what else it proves is, the limitation they were previously saying was wrong. So when they said they can\’t do it, they were actually wrong.

That is the number one reason why you cannot believe clients in your session. Number one, as I said before, that\’s not your role. But number two, people are often wrong.

The biggest mistake clinicians make is when the client says,
– I can\’t answer that question.
– There\’s never been a time where I\’ve been happy.
– I don\’t know what I want to accomplish.
You believe them. And the problem is when you believe them, when you accept the limitation that they put on themselves, then the limitation becomes real.

One of the things that this doctor does on this show is he\’s completely oblivious to their limitation. Now, he\’s not a Solution Focused Brief Therapist, not even pretending to be, but when they say these things, he\’s just like, that\’s fine, go home and do this. It\’s almost like they\’re not even talking when they start crying and saying, I can\’t do it, I can\’t do it. It\’s literally like noise to him. He\’s not attending to it because he knows what I know and what I want you to know.

If you attend to the limitation, you, it becomes real.

And this doctor is literally trying to save these people\’s lives. If you weigh seven-, eight-hundred-pounds, there are no 80 year olds weighing 800 pounds. He knows this is a life and death situation. I got to help these people lose weight to save their lives. I don\’t have time to listen to their bullshit limitation. I\’ve got to pay really close attention to their capabilities. And he knows they can do it. So he challenges them. Go home. Here\’s a book. It\’s got the foods you can\’t eat, the food you should eat, and exercises you can do even at your size and weight.

And they say, \”I can\’t do it. This is too tough. I can\’t go from ten-, twelve-thousand calories a day down to 1200. It\’s too much.\” But then they do this amazing thing. They do it. Sometimes it starts slow and sometimes it\’s imperfect, but they do it. And then 12 months later, they\’ve lost a third of their body weight.

Guys, your clients are doing the same thing. They\’re going to say stuff like,
– I\’ve never been happy.
– I can\’t answer that question.
– I don\’t know what I want to achieve.
And they\’re wrong. But just like the people in this TV show, they don\’t know that they\’re wrong. And if you buy into limitation, then you make the limitation right.

But if you can stay true and stay resilient and stay stubborn in your belief in people\’s ability to achieve, then their capability begins to shine.

I can\’t help it, man. When I watch… as I walk through the world, I can\’t help but be a therapist. It\’s just, you know, can\’t help it. I can\’t turn it off. So when I watch this show, it\’s not necessarily just a show about these people who are obese. To me, it\’s a show about their championism. It\’s a show about their resolve and their resilience. Because most of the people, again, not all, but most of the people go on to lose huge amounts of weight just in the first year. Then the show just ends at the end of the year, and you actually don\’t know what happened. There\’s another show I saw in the streaming platform where it\’s like, what happened next to some of these people? I can\’t wait to watch it, because I want to see.

But in that year, they prove that the limitation is wrong. And the way that they do it is by Dr. Now, not listening to the limitation. That is your job also in therapy, when your client says they can\’t, when the client says they don\’t think they can do it, when the client says, I don\’t know. When the client says, I can\’t answer that. You\’ve got to remember it is my job to get busy believing in you. And it is not my job to decide whether or not you\’re telling me the truth or not.

Whenever you hear a client limitation, treat it like white noise because you know that it\’s wrong. That\’s the brilliance of what Dr. Now does when he\’s working with these clients and patients as he\’s helping on their bariatric surgery journeys. And it\’s your job as a psychotherapist.