How We Care Ep 2 The Problem With Positive Thinking

Elizabeth and Paul speak of how helping professionals of all kinds are united in their desire to use their skills and knowledge to help people make positive changes and feel better about life. In seeking to enable these outcomes, however, we can sometimes try to 'fast track' the client to a better state through use of 'positive thinking' strategies for which the client/patient/student may not yet be ready. Inadvertently we may reinforce a double bind where the person being helped expresses difficult emotions, and then feels additionally bad for not being more positive!