Basketball Therapy

I'm an active therapist. Although I know when to be quiet and allow the healing process to move at its own pace my tendency is to ask lots of probing questions to draw out the issues, themes and assumptions that my clients have. I tend to guide the conversation toward productive topics, offer suggestions, suggest possibilities, gently challenge preconceived notions, point out and support healthy functioning and in general work actively to keep the therapeutic process moving toward greater emotional health and improved life satisfaction.

Sometimes I think of the process like playing on a basketball team. My client and I pass the ball back and forth to each other. Sometimes I take a shot -- an insight, a fresh perspective, a useful reframe -- and experience that satisfying moment when the ball falls right through the basket with a satisfying swishhhhh. Two points! I just as often "pass the ball" to the client, positioning him or her through our conversation to make the goal. In this way therapy is a process of ongoing, ever-shifting teamwork.

The ball doesn't always go through the net. Earlier this week I suggested to a client how one of his difficulties could relate to an event from his childhood. The client thought for a moment and said "Bill, I understand what you're saying but it doesn't feel true for me." I love this kind of honest interaction because it shows me a client isn't going to agree with something just to please me. When someone says "no" then I am more trusting when they say "yes".

You can't score points if you don't shoot the ball, so I like my clients and I to take lots of shots. Sometimes the ball makes the basket, sometimes it bounces off the rim and sometimes it's a total "air ball". But just like a good team, when we get into a good rhythm with each other, it's poetry in motion, a thing of real beauty and a joy to behold.
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