ABSTRACT
To illustrate this phenomenon, I (WD) will briefly describe an example. I have a client who is quite unassertive and has difficulty forming relationships with women. He gets particularly lonely at weekends and when he becomes aware of this feeling he condemns himself for being lonely. My initial therapeutic strategy has been to encourage him to accept himself for being alone so that he does not become depressed. This, I argue, will help him to become active and increase his chances of meeting people over the weekend. However, during one session when I was disputing his self-depreciation belief I noticed that my client was becoming quite discouraged. I brought this to his attention and wondered aloud what might be going through his mind as we talked. After some hesitation, he admitted that he thought I was trying to convey to him that he would never get a girlfriend. If I had not become aware of his non-verbal behaviour during the session and encouraged him to share his experience, I would have left unchallenged his incorrect view that I was communicating a vote of no confidence in him. This would have been extraordinarily counterproductive to the self-acceptance work that I was in fact trying to do with him.
