Skip to main content

Uncovering a Deeper Truth

A FAMILY DILEMMA

The client came to me with a dilemma—he had a difficult situation to address, and although he had identified some possible courses of action, he was having great difficulty committing to a direction.

His brother was a long-time drug addict, in and out of recovery. My client had always been there to help out when his brother needed it, providing both financial and moral/familial support. But my client had reached his limit – he knew something had to change, but he wasn’t sure what. His brother was back into the addiction, and asking again for help.

My client had identified 3 possible courses of action:

  • Maintain the status quo: help out the best he could, just as he always did.
  • Stage an intervention.
  • Move on: tell his brother he was done helping, and that he was on his own from now on.

He was pretty clear about his thoughts of each, the pros and cons, the emotional toll, and the potential fallout. But with all that thinking and analysis, he just could not decide which path to take.

Our PD Insights session focused on these 3 possible paths, above, and the topics of ‘himself’ and his ‘preference’. This allowed us to tap into his unconscious perceptions and attitudes towards each of the possible courses of action.

OUTCOME:

Working with the session data, he discovered that the reason he was not able to choose and commit to one of these paths was that he hadn’t adequately identified the problem. He thought the problem was how to best deal with his addict brother. It turned out the real problem was that he loved his brother deeply, but was almost completely emotionally drained. He didn’t believe an intervention would really work. He just couldn’t abandon his brother either, but he “didn’t have anything left to give”.

Through our work together, my client realized the only course of action was to speak this newly recognized, deepest truth – to tell his brother how much he loved him, and that while he wishes he could really help, he’s just drained by it all and has nothing left to give. While he felt sadness around this conclusion, he was very clear that it was the right path for him in this situation.