There’s nothing quite like experiencing heartfelt values. A deep experience of values is inspiring, energizing, and galvanizing. To help a client experience this requires a kind of “deep listening” for the subtext that implies and leads to such values. This version of the experience uses deep experience in order to not only prime the client to resourcefully move into experiencing values in this heartfelt manner, but it also makes for a more compelling experience that lends momentum to treatment. Once your client makes such connections, you are able to begin connecting their values with actual needs and objectives. This is a crucial and powerful turning point in the treatment. It empowers any number of interventions. For example, clients can learn to communicate in a much more compelling manner when their expression of vision and ideas is infused with heartfelt values. As you interact with your client, construct the best sense of their values as you can. Do not be distracted by the primitive or negative constructs that the client expresses. Even the most vulgar expression of opinion can yield information about a client’s higher values. In addition, their level of consciousness and irrationality can provide vital clues as to how they may be disorganized as a result of specific cognitive impairments, mood disorders, trauma history, impaired early bonding, or even significant signs of mental illness.
A middle-aged Jewish couple could think this about a young man hurling anti-Semitic insults at them. They saw him desperately seeking meaning and self-esteem by aligning himself with something larger than himself and vested with power. They found they could connect with him and meet his intense and unmet developmental need for emotional nurturing. They met that need by adopting him into their family. But most people who zealously align with sources of felt authority have developmental and cognitive issues that can be seen from a mental health perspective. This story shows that the values you are looking for are connected to actual needs. If the needs are primitive because of problems such as poor early bonding with parental figures, then the work will almost certainly need to begin at a fundamental level. Odds are that this will require a psychotherapist with a good deal of patience and an excellent understanding of cognitive and developmental remediation. In any case, once you have your collection of values that are “up” for the client in connection with his or her current issues, you are ready for the next step. But remember that, since values are ultimately universal, you’ll have no trouble coming up with values. The objective here is to get a sense of which ones the client is frustrated with expressing and perhaps having difficulty fully connecting with. Help your client connect their values with the feelings or behaviors that are at issue. An excellent way is to:
Inquire about the outcomes they would prefer to see.
Then ask them about the values that the outcomes would support. You can help them find the words and ideas if they are unsure how to express themselves.
For example, a man who was told to see a counselor if he wanted to keep his job was very angry at feeling coerced into treatment. He tended to be too rough with other employees, saying things that sounded too hostile, judgmental, and controlling. The client was able to say that he wanted to be free to express himself in his own way, that some of the employees were stupid, that he really wanted them to do their best (which included not getting in his way), and that he wanted the business to prosper. With a little help, he connected these things with the following values:
Freedom of expression and acceptance of diversity;
Being able to give and receive feedback;
The achievement of human potential;
Collaboration for productive work;
Allowing others to complete their tasks without interruption; and…
Profit.
The counselor now has six “handles” to encourage more values-based behavior and agreements. The values of freedom, calm, potential, cooperation, independence, profit, and choice can be applied to any potential goal. For example, the client could see why his boss sent him to counseling because the “weaker” employees couldn’t handle the client’s demeanor. He could also see how “manipulating” the “weaker” employees would help them perform better. Isn’t it true that your child would learn more if you “let” them fail a certain school assignment rather than stepping in and doing half (or 99%) of the work for them? The grade isn’t as important as the process the child must go through on their own to gain the competency to get an A.
A side note: One of the most crucial life skills you could ever help a child achieve is the ability to turn failure into feedback. There’s another intervention required here. at our past failures and at our false self-contempt and unfair self-criticism right after, and we do not wish to feel that way ever again. So “feedback” is suddenly a good idea. But did you consider installing that desire to learn from failure as if it’s the most valuable experience for your children? The client was from New York and had recently relocated to Denver. The counselor commiserated with him a bit, recognizing that people from the east coast tend to be misunderstood by mid-westerners. In this context, they were able to agree that making the cultural transition was a meaningful challenge, even if it was inconvenient. It was also kind of like a game, in which you learn to play along with the strange rules of the Midwest, such as not confronting people in a direct, immediate, spontaneous way.