Hostile Client

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Harold is deeply depressed due to the breakup of his marriage relationship, which lasted eight years. His wife claims that it is impossible to live with him. She accuses him of neglect, insensitivity, hostility, thus, an absolutely unsympathetic person appears before us. However, Harold thinks differently: “She's an ungrateful crap. And that's after everything I've done for her. Before meeting me, she was an empty place. I opened all the doors for her, and this is how she repaid me - she left me. Good riddance!"

I caught myself thinking that I sympathize with his wife for the fact that she plucked up the courage and left him. Soon, however, the feeling of guilt crept in, I remembered that Harold was suffering. He probably doesn't always behave so disgusting. In any case, I thought so until I myself fell under his arm. Harold was suspicious and rather cynical about psychotherapy. He said that the only reason why he is here is to convince his already almost ex-wife of his desire to change. He believes that all psychotherapists are scammers, a kind of prostitute, and, moreover, he does not value me! I squeezed out a response, praising him for his honesty, and assured me that I did not take his attacks to heart.

"You'd better take them to heart if you want money."

I stepped back a little and turned the conversation to his life. Harold felt lonely. Throughout his life, he kept pushing people away from himself, while complaining about the lack of friends. I regretted that, in defending myself from attacks, I tried to put him in an awkward position. Obviously, the person was in trouble and asked me for help in the ways available to him.

We spent about six hours together, during which the struggle did not stop. Harold could be polite and correct, and then suddenly showed unthinkable hostility. Anger overwhelmed him, moreover, I was his target. He never once apologized. In his opinion, I was paid to put up with all of his antics.

I tried to let him know how difficult it is to be around him. The same feeling was most likely experienced by other people. I explained that the habitual behavior of this kind in relations with others forces them to reject it. He called me a fraud and flew out of the office like a bullet without making an appointment. His last words were: "Stick the bill on your ass." I was so glad to get rid of him that I didn't care anymore.

Harold and others like him - aggressive people, belligerent teenagers and feuding spouses - create big problems in our work. In all these cases, one has to deal with the manifestation of violent emotions - a whirlwind of destructive energy that sweeps away anyone who gets in the way.

Obnoxious client

By definition, violent, aggressive, hostile clients who vent their emotions on others have impulse control problems. They believe they have a right to special treatment that they have lacked throughout their lives. They expect psychotherapists to compensate for their perceived damage and immediately relieve their symptoms. The anger and frustration are heightened even more when clients see that they miscalculated this time too.

Alicia belongs to the category of obnoxious clients and is capable of annoying any psychotherapist who considers himself a specialist in taming especially aggressive and unpredictable clients. I really want to forget her, just forget. Four years have passed since then. But she still does not go away. I catch myself paying attention to the little green cars, even though I know she sold hers. I think I still have to meet with her. Although I devoted a lot of time and energy to working with suicides, encouraging them to live, convincing them of the need to realize their capabilities, I think I would be relieved to learn that Alicia had died. This is not typical for me. I believe that I have a high tolerance for any annoying behavior, in any case, I surpass in this quality all psychotherapists I know. I am able to control my imagination while working. I know how to deal with patients when they are angry. The client's disgusting behavior is for me a testament to the depth of his unhappiness. And I tend to react to it professionally. But not with Alicia.

Alicia seemed to the author so different from other clients, as her despair was extremely deep, her behavior was explosive and extremely unpredictable, not to mention her tendency to verbal threats. Even the helpline staff complained that they did not want to talk to her anymore because of her disgusting behavior. When the psychotherapist found out that a dozen professionals were also in despair from communicating with Alicia, she calmed down a little and found the strength to admit her defeat: “I finished Alishia's therapy. She did it reluctantly, but I felt great relief. At the same time, I would like to know if I tried all the ways in order to establish a relationship with her and finally heal her."

Admitting defeat when dealing with such cases is a common situation. So, Giovaccini described his own experiences in the process of working with an aggressive client. This client began by accusing him of incompetence because the therapist could not guess that there was a disaster in her life. She eventually got to the point where she blamed him for all the pain and suffering she had endured throughout her life. As time went on, her anger grew even more intense, and the stream of accusations grew more and more. Trying to understand the reasons for her anger and maintain a professional detachment, Giovaccini eventually lost his patience and told her what he thought of her. She left therapy.

When faced with such cases, the therapist is forced to deal with people who do not follow the generally accepted norms of human communication, which are part of the therapeutic interaction. Such people are unbearable, offend us (and others) because of their obsessive suspicion and hostility. A striking example of an obnoxious client is a man who turned up against his will to a psychotherapist.

Such a person could serve as a prototype for the character of Jackie Gleason's novel "The Newlyweds" - irritable, headstrong, criticizing everything and everyone, demanding, hostile, like a caged animal, sniffling, puffing and stomping. Obviously, this is not the best candidate for psychotherapy. However, sometimes such people also need help, as a rule, their wives bring them under the threat of divorce.

The man, whose hallmarks were rudeness and hostility, in fact, according to Teffel, suffered from severe chronic depression: emotions, leaving it to your partners or children to do it”.

If we look at the situation from this angle, it becomes clear that hostile men cannot express in words the reasons for their anxiety and are completely unaware of their feelings. Their behavior is fundamentally different from the behavior of aggressive women (and other men), who fall into anger for any reason, it is accompanied by a feeling of resentment and helplessness. Teffel believes that focusing on the underlying emotional state of aggressive people while working through their self-esteem and need to dominate problems can help them cope with excruciating feelings.

This hypothesis, even if it is only true half the time, helps me with particularly difficult clients. Hostile people scare me - as they expect. If I still manage to break through the noise and screams, pain and suffering become visible behind them. Only a deeply wounded person can create such a commotion.

Confrontation with a hostile customer

The main problem when dealing with hostile clients is that their anger causes us to respond with feelings towards them. We feel the attack and go to the defense. At the same time, you can convince yourself as much as you like that the client's hostility stems from his pathology, it is still difficult not to take the client's attacks personally - especially when the client is deliberately trying to provoke us. Hostile clients are often more sensitive to the most vulnerable areas of their interlocutors. If attacks on professional competence can cause any noticeable resentment in us, they will do their best to achieve this reaction: they will make a lot of noise, complain about us behind our back, and even threaten with physical harm. We will have no choice but to enter into conflict with them.

The researchers analyzed the types of client behaviors that could cause anger and irritation in the therapist. In their opinion, the first thing to decide is whether our anger and frustration are justified, or whether they arise from our own unresolved problems. In this regard, the authors recommend analyzing the conflict and answering the question: do the client's problems take place in this case, which forced him to seek help, or is it all about ourselves? Only after that the psychotherapist can talk about the feelings that he is experiencing, although the vast majority prefer not to discuss them. The main criterion for deciding whether to discuss my reactions with the client is the same as for self-disclosure in general: will it be useful for the client to learn about my feelings, or am I trying to satisfy my own needs at his expense?

You need to make sure that publicizing your feelings is not just a convenient way to recoup, humiliate the client, or elevate yourself. If the therapist is genuinely willing to help the client by providing feedback, these types of interventions can be a turning point in the psychotherapy process. One of the reasons clients behave aggressively is the lack of proper resistance from others. Often people get lost when faced with overt aggression or are afraid to express their opinion about such behavior. It is the psychotherapist who is able to confront a hostile client and make him take responsibility for the negative impact of aggressive behavior on others.

“I sit here and think that, perhaps, I would not listen to you for free. In addition, my wages seem to me to be clearly insufficient. It is not surprising that your wife left you, the children are afraid of you, and you have no friends either. Who will voluntarily tolerate your childhood antics? And now you can leave by slamming the door if you want, because that is exactly what you did whenever someone tried to help you. But keep in mind that if you leave, you will continue to be the most unfortunate person. I want to help you, but you are doing everything possible to make it difficult for me to stay with you, to sympathize with you."

Nice speech, I thought. But he still left and never returned. I convinced myself that I still could not provide him with real help, even if I had such an opportunity. I was absolutely sure that my words were dictated by a desire to help (although, I will not hide, I pronounced them not without a share of satisfaction). If I showed more compassion or gentleness, would he be able to hear me and not feel threatened? I doubt. Will a person give up over the years a strategy of subjugating others just because I don't like it?

There are other benefits of the therapist revealing his feelings to aggressive clients. First, it helps clients learn to distinguish between feelings of anger and hostility, and shows that expressing their feelings does not necessarily involve harming others. It also serves as an excellent opportunity for constructive exploration of interpersonal conflicts and helps clients understand that they are entitled to strong feelings, but they should be expressed with respect for the other person.

Regardless of the methods used to intervene, the aggressive client should be taught acceptable ways of expressing pain and anger, which in themselves may be legitimate. The best setting for learning effective ways of communication is a psychotherapy session, during which the clinician persistently rebuffs manifestations of hostility, while maintaining sensitivity and empathy

Jeffrey A. Kottler. The compleat therapist. Compassionate therapy: Working with difficult clients. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1991 (lyricist)