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| Sigmund Freud, Wikipedia |
If you’ve never been
to see someone about a mental health issue before this may seem a weird
question. However, there are two broad
approaches to our kind of work.
In the old days,
clients would pitch up, describe what was going on, and receive an expert
opinion. Possibly this came about
because many of the first modern generation of mental health providers were
psychiatrists, medical doctors specializing in mental health.
So they’d act like traditional doctors,
dispensing wise counsel to their patients.
But in the 1940s, the
idea of a client centered approach became popular. It was championed by Carl
Rogers, a psychologist (not a medical doctor!) who believed that we are each
our own best expert. He advocated that mental health workers should listen to
and work with the client to set goals and find solutions.
Today mental health
providers who give advice are called Directive and those who are client centered
approach are called Non-Directive.
Generally speaking,
people in the West lean towards wanting Non-Directive practitioners because it
generally falls in line better with our individualistic, egalitarian cultural
approaches while people in South East Asia lean towards wanting Directive
practitioners because it falls in line better with their group oriented, strong
hierarchical cultural approaches.
I say generally and am
making sweeping statements because this is just a casual blog post. If you want to debate this, we can talk about it. For now the
question is, if you are looking for help and a bit uncertain about what you want, what should you know?
Here are some
thoughts:
A big pro of the
Directive approach is that you don’t have to make any decisions. You pay
someone to do it for you. If you get someone good, who thinks like you, that
can work very well.
The big drawback is that what works for me, may
not work for you. If you are not totally in sync, the advice may not work - or
make things worse.
A big pro of the
Non-Directive is that you are involved in every stage of the process, and so
you are much more likely to develop good approaches that suit your unique
person and situation.
The big drawback is that it takes a lot of work, and it
can be tiring.
Me, I suggest it’s
best to work with someone like me who does a bit of both. You see, there are times when something is clear to me because
of my training and experience.
For example, I’m very
happy to say things like, “There are three ways of doing this, A, B and C. From
what I know of you, I’d go with approach B as it’s most likely to suit you
best.”
I’m also not shy about
giving opinions. For example, “I think you should consider looking into your
relationship with your MIL, because it sounds toxic and I think it may cause
you trouble if you don’t address it.”
But I also check
with you that this is what you want. And if you disagree, that’s okay.
Because I’m someone you work with; I’m not your nanny. In the end, you decide what's good for you.
