The client’s background personal “conditioning”

It is generally agreed that one of the most influential of all factors in the deeper attitudes and feelings of people is the kind of “conditioning” they received in their childhood, particularly in the earliest years of their home and family life. Most of any person’s emotional needs have their origin in these early experiences and relationships, and the earlier the needs and assumptions are laid down the more “unconscious” they are likely to be. So almost all marriage counseling for any but the most superficial disorders will need to include some consideration of the early background of each client. As we have seen in the case of John and Mary at the beginning of this book it may be helpful to hear each client’s feelings and ideas about the in-laws as well as their own parents, and in this way the counselor may obtain a kind of “two dimensional view” of the early background of both clients, so that he can then help each client to relate present attitudes to early background.

The last part of the interview with Frank might be continued in some such manner as this:

c. Your mother used to be pretty good at anticipating all your needs?

F. Yes, I suppose I was the only pebble on the beach, you see Dad died when I was about 10, and he fortunately left her well enough off, and she didn’t have to go out to work. She looked after me like a prince, I didn’t have any real duties at home, and I suppose it wasn’t very good for me really. We had a married couple who looked after the whole place and they were there until a few years ago.

c. And then, when you married, Betty took over looking after you in the way your mother had done?

F. That’s one of the things that attracted me to her, she was always so thoughtful, and she anticipated every need of her parents, her mother refused to stand in the way of Betty’s marriage although she was going through a difficult time emotionally then. But she puts her oar in far too much now, and Betty takes too much notice of her. The result of all this is that I’ve got to look after myself most of the time, and I don’t think it’s good enough.

c. Could it be that you feel the need for a kind of “mothering” from your wife?

F. Well, I suppose it could, but why not? Shouldn’t a wife who loves her husband try to meet his needs to some extent?

c. And his demands too?

F. I didn’t think there was much difference between my needs and my demands.

c. Then you need the “fussing over” as well as demand it?

F. Well, I suppose I can get on without it I’ve been getting on without it lately at any rate. Yes, I think I’m beginning to see your point, that I’ve felt the lack of it mostly because I had so much of it from Mom. Perhaps Betty shouldn’t have fussed over me so much at the beginning of our marriage, and I might have come to earth sooner. Actually you know we’ve each been doing a lot of demanding on one another, and I think I can see now that we’ve each dug our heels in hard against them. In my case I’ve felt I had to protect what was left of my individuality that way, and I suppose Betty dug her heels in for the same reason.

c. If, as you feel, each of you has been digging your heels in mainly to resist possible demands, would the best answer be in the direction of cutting our demands on one another?

F. I suppose it would if we could do it, but does that mean that we would just have to put up with all kinds of inconveniences in silence?

c. What would you think about that? What would a good partner do in such circumstances?

F. I suppose he would tell the other one how he feels and appeal for cooperation. But then I’ve often appealed to Betty, and she just says she can’t do it, and then I get sore. So how can that do much good?

c. If you get sore when she says she can’t do it, can you really call it an appeal, or is it really a demand well disguised as an appeal, a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

F. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that but I think I’m beginning to see what you mean. If you’re not willing to accept “no” for an answer it’s really a demand, no matter how like an appeal it may sound. Is that what you’re getting at?

c. Well yes, that’s what I had in mind, you’ve got hold of the real difference between an appeal and a demand.

It is obvious here that the exploration of Frank’s background personal “conditioning” has brought him to the achievement of some insight into his proneness for dictatorial demands, and the discussion has in this case moved on by its own momentum to further clarification about the difference between appeals, which are helpful in a partnership, and demands, which may be destructive. This approach, through insight into why he wants to make demands, will be more likely to help Frank to stop doing so than any superficial lecture on the futility of demands in a democratic marriage. It may be that the same kind of opportunity may come to help Betty to gain insight into her demanding attitudes and to make some changes in them.

This discussion with either Frank or Betty may lead on to some consideration of helpful attitudes in the face of persisting demands from the other partner. In Frank’s case the discussion might possibly go on in some such manner as this:

F. But that’s all very well, suppose I stop demanding and become an appealing husband, what do I do when Betty makes demands on me? Wouldn’t that make it a rather one sided affair?

c. In questions of this kind do you think the best approach would be to start with some of the facts of life as we know them, and work from there?

F. I’m not quite sure how that applies, the demands are certainly “facts of life,” but how can we work from there?

c. Would you agree that one of the facts of life which applies to this is that Betty has, in common with all of us, what we might call the right of free speech; that if she wants to demand the world she is at liberty to do so and you are equally at liberty to decline to comply with it?

F. But that’s pretty much what I’ve done, isn’t it?

c. Have you accepted her right to demand anything, or have you got sore about it and made her feel her right to free speech threatened?

F. Ah! Now I’m beginning to see the point; if I can accept other people’s right to demand, and quietly exercise my own right to disappoint them, then we can agree to differ without any great trouble. That seems to have possibilities. I shall have to try it out a bit more with Betty and see how it goes.

Notice how the counselor tries to handle the interview in such a way that the client gradually works out the helpful insights himself, helped at times by “creative questions.” This is much better as a rule than any attempt to offer the information to him in the form of dogmatic statements, because he is more likely to accept the ideas he works out himself and still more to remember them. He is also more able to work out future decisions on a basis of the facts of life because of this experience of doing so.

Tags: Counseling