Wants and needs

I was reflecting this morning on 'change' and my own path in deepening my understanding of facilitating change. It struck me how, in working with clients, that often I am provided with what the client wants rather than what they need. This happens with some frequency in psychotherapy whereby clients want to get away from their presenting situation and they want to 'get better'. Often, they want someone to magic away their problems or to give them some formulation they can enact and then voila- sorted. I often find it tempting to provide solutions- particularly when I am in a time-limited relationship. However, what therapeutic work has taught me is that what clients want may not be what they need. Often, we are so embedded in our patterns that we simply cannot see how we act in repeatedly self-defeating ways. Even when we are aware of these patterns, we sometimes struggle to create new ways of acting and being. The therapeutic world is not different from the organisational world- for me, I am finding that my therapeutic experiences inform and ground my organisational work. Yesterday I was in a meeting with a couple of senior managers and their issue was with a member of staff whom they have struggled with for a longish period of time. Through our conversation, some of their habitual patterns of relating became more evident. Even though one of the senior managers managed to catch herself in mid-flow twice and pointed out to herself (and us) how she was, once again, thinking and envisioning acting in exactly the same way as she always did- she struggled with being able to come up with alternatives. I had to stop myself in the moment from wanting to provide answers because that would have repeated their habitual dynamics of the three roles of attacker, victim and rescuer. This was/ is change in action. I also reflected on how our change in action was made possible by the longevity of our relationships and how, over time, with the help of trust, we were able to do what we did yesterday. I further reflected on how often in the past, particularly at the beginning, I delivered what they wanted rather than what they needed. I confess at least 50% of the time I was drawn into doing what they wanted. However, I am thinking now, without that compromise at the beginning, would we have got to where we got to yesterday?