ABSTRACT
Counseling practitioners often face client resistance, hesitating attitudes, or impasses that can be difficult to understand and to work through. The author discusses the theoretical and practical implications of an aphorism from the poet Rilke. This metaphor uses ‘angels’ and ‘devils’ to crystallize the dilemma of change from the client’s perspective and relates to many significant Adlerian concepts in addition to the generic helping process.
Adlerian practitioners and others in the helping fields are committed to facilitating positive results in the lives of their clients. Regardless of the individual practitioner’s theoretical orientation, his or her therapeutic emphasis is most likely to be directed toward some overt or covert change on the client’s part. This change will presumably lead to the resolution of the expressed problem and to an increase in the feeling of general mental health. Regrettably, the facilitative process does not always proceed smoothly nor does it always achieve this ideal outcome.
This chapter, “Lifestyle Self-Awareness and the Practitioner: Understanding and Reframing Resistance Using Angels and Devils as Metaphor,” from Warren R. Rule, The Journal of Individual Psychology 56:2, pp. 184-91. Copyright © 2000 by the University of Texas Press. All rights reserved.
46Obstacles and puzzles, both identified and incomprehensible, seem to intrude during the unfolding of the therapeutic process. A frequently targeted phenomenon by therapists and counselors is labeled as “client resistance.” This phenomenon is often blamed for painfully slow progress in therapy as well as for its failure. However, in their eagerness to be a positive influence in clients’ lives, helpers may lose sight of the importance for clients to maintain an internal psychodynamic balance when confronted with the threat of change. This dynamic frequently contributes to the occurrence of “resistance,” that is, “a discrepancy between the goals of the therapist and those of the patient” (Dreikurs, 1967, p. 65). When resistance occurs, in terms of conscious or nonconscious therapeutic movement, the therapist’s goal to lead the client somewhere psychologically is not compatible with the client’s goal of maintaining or enhancing the self.
In the early 1900s, German poet and author Rainer Marie Rilke expressed a powerful metaphor regarding the enigma that pervades the conflict between confronting change and maintaining stability. In deciding not to begin psychoanalysis, he essentially concluded that: If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well (Freedman, 1996; Hull, 1947). This metaphor crystallizes powerful theoretical concepts for many major, contemporary psychotherapeutic approaches in general and especially for major concepts of Individual Psychology. This aphorism, which represents many symbiotic intrapsychic relationships, can be used by Adlerian psychotherapists to develop their understanding of client resistance to change as well as to facilitate their clients’ therapeutic processes.
