Much has happened since my last post. Most notably in a professional sense, I have been working my way through my “foundation” internship year—the first of two internship years I am undertaking as part of my master of social work degree. I worked during the autumn of 2023 with mostly older, neurodivergent adults with and without “intellectual disability” and presently I am working in a high school setting with neurotypical and neurodivergent teenagers aged 14 and above. As my latest field experience comes to an end in a little under one month, I am looking forward to getting back to writing here regularly in both long- and short-form pieces. My intention today is to begin easing into that with some general thinking-out-loud.
Lately, I have been reflecting on the nature of “interventions.” Not much has changed, then, since my last post which, I had not remembered until I was well into this piece, dealt with an experience I had demonstrating a mindfulness technique in class last summer.
I am, however, much more opinionated now on “interventions” than I was then!
There are so many ways that an “intervention” can be defined. The “skills” we can give clients and the techniques we can use with them—one might go so far as to say use on them and/or their “symptoms”—all heavily wrap around ideas of the therapist doing something to or for the client (see Bolton, 2024 for further discussion). Often, I observe, therapists are so focused on what they “should” be doing to or with the client that they are missing out on moments of relational connection. The paradox of this matter, however, is that even doing nothing, as a use of one’s professional self in the room with the client, is its own intervention.
More and more, in my meetings with clients, to the extent that I can within the school setting, I am looking to the relationship between myself and clients and making a conscious effort to examine the ways my intervening—this term, I use in the context of the generalist intervention model of social work—brings in or takes out elements of power between myself and the client. I think of one, favorite professor who continually reminded my groups class cohort that everything we say and do in meetings with clients is an intervention. I do not intend for even my way of being in the room with the client to impose a sense that I am somehow above them or have some expertise or secret knowledge about them that they do not already possess. It is particularly important to me to consider power dynamics.
My professor’s comment, for me, pointed to the nature and power of the relationship that unfolds in every therapy meeting—every meeting being a new opportunity for encountering what is real in each of us and which is co-created between us. Above and beyond any “skill” or technique that I could implement or offer to the client, I see that space-between as hallowed ground where the client can be allowed to self-determine and understand for themselves what is going on in their lives.
While in some instances I am constrained by my present institutional structure I, in general, from a philosophical perspective, have no expectations for clients. When doing worksheets with a young person, for instance, to help them understand their emotional responses to situations, I let them take the lead and if they do not want to fill out a particular portion, we talk about that and look at other ways of getting at the material that are more suitable or better fitting to them. I consider the context of the client and that they may have other ways of processing; I consider, perhaps, that they are not yet ready to discuss the material. Or instead of writing something down, they can explain to me what is coming up for them and we can navigate through the material in that way. I try, as much as I can considering institutional mandates, to take out any possible sense that they have to do the work. At the same time, I have no delusions on this subject—I know that in some cases I am only offering an illusion of choice, due to the mandates of my working environment. The point for me is that I am trying to soften the blow of this lack of choice, trying to undermine the control over the client that I inherently wield and which in some way will always communicate that they do have to do the work. This is just one example of the nuance I consider in my work.
Behaviorists would argue—indeed, I have had this debate with one—that my choosing to not direct the client in specific ways is in fact its own direction and reinforcement placed upon them. I do not believe that is the case. I am not there to change the client; I am there to understand them as persons, based on their sharing of themselves with me. If they grow through our interactions to better understand themselves and their situations, then that is a wonderful byproduct of our meeting as two authentic persons. But it is not my stance that I am an expert or that meeting with me will somehow cure the client just by virtue of me being myself. My presence, as Rogers said, may be helpful— or it may not. Helpfulness is certainly not guaranteed.
More to come on this topic… for now you can read an article I recently published at The Person-Centered Journal, linked below, for my current positionality on neurodiversity-informed, person-centered therapy and relational therapy more generally.
If you would like to donate a small amount to support me in this endeavor, you can do so on a one-time or monthly basis at my Ko-Fi profile. Proceeds will go directly towards my university tuition (every little bit helps!) and covering basic needs. Infrequently, too, I will be enabled to fairly pay research study participants.
Bolton, M. J. (2024). De-centering neuronormativity in humanistic psychotherapy: Towards a neurodiversity-informed, person-centered approach. The Person-Centered Journal, 26(2021-2023), 13–48. https://adpca.org/article/pcj-volume-26-2021-2023-full-edition/
Please be as opinionated as you like, or what's the point. Be unapologetically you!