The Phobia Fixer – The Blog

Last week I asked if therapists should be tweeting and the general consensus seemed to be that it was a good thing – so long as they’re having conversations and engaging with people, not just broadcasting their wares.

I wanted to share a few of the thoughts I’d been having about the topic – some of these are a bit of a ramble – which won’t surprise any of you who’ve met me!

Do you ever start a session with a client and just know, despite all your skills, it just wasn’t going to work, you’re too far apart in your approach to life or there’s just something off.  It happens in ‘real’ life all the time but we can usually just walk away.  Do clients ever start their conversations with the problems they’ve had with previous therapists (and do you ever wonder if they’re going to talk like that about you to someone else!) and you feel their frustration and how it might cloud the session you’re about to have?

I’m quite clear that no matter how exemplary your skills are, you can’t save the world, you can’t fix everyone, some people just won’t like you and therefore it’s likely that you’ll just be wasting each other’s time if you persist.

As part of my training we did a lot of work on rapport, what it is and how important it is in helping someone make a shift in their life and start feeling better.  It occurred to me that you can build rapport in 140 characters; or at least in several sets of 140 characters!

Everyone wants to have conversations; we all need connections with other human beings, it’s part of the delight of being alive!   How much more could we achieve and help someone if we already have the measure of each other.  To be clear, this isn’t about offering therapy in 140 characters or discussing a specific problem in a public arena, this is about showing that you’re a real person that someone else might want to meet and talk to in person.

I’m still stumbling my way through social media sites, but I’m loving the people who do interact – and getting frustrated by the ones who just send out advertisements.

I said this would be a bit of a ramble! 

People want to do business with people – don’t broadcast, have a conversation.