No Bullshit Therapy: How to engage people who don’t want to work with you

Do you have clients who do not want to be helped? Clients who don’t trust you, your profession, or your service? Clients who don’t want to change despite your best efforts?

Then No Bullshit Therapy (NBT) is for you! Most simply, NBT is about being authentic.

Many people are cajoled, pressured, or mandated to see therapists, counsellors, and other helpers. Hence, they are reluctant, suspicious, and resistant to being helped. This puts professionals in the difficult position of trying to help someone who does not want to be helped. To make things worse, there are few practice models designed to engage people who don’t want to be engaged.

NBT creates a context for mutual honesty and directness in working relationships. Creating a context for mutual honesty and directness can be refreshingly effective, especially with people who are suspicious of counselling or distrustful of the counsellor. When combined with warmth and care, honesty and directness can enhance co-operation, connection, and trust, especially if the practitioner avoids jargon and acknowledges constraints to the work. NBT is ideal for working with people who:

• Don’t like therapy or the idea of therapy (even if they’ve never had it)
• Don’t trust warm fuzzy “do-gooders” or “psychologisers”
• Are suspicious of services because they have experienced trauma and have had abusive institutional experiences or unsatisfactory treatment in the past
• Don’t see themselves as a client, don’t agree with the referrer’s description of them or their problems, and appear to not want to change

Practical and engaging, this book is an essential guide for therapists, counsellors, and other allied-health professionals who are looking for a more effective way to connect with reluctant clients and ensure they get the support they need. It may also help you create more robust relationships at work and at home.