Focus and Perspective from the Client’s View

Written by Darlene Ouimet

As I was thinking about the video that Norm made for his newsletter post this month on stress, focus and perspective, I couldn’t help but relate it to myself as a former client. I found it somewhat amusing to realize how much I had liked to think that I was not easily distracted from my focus. I didn’t see the point in changing my perspective about the most pressing problem of the moment and I didn’t care about certain processes if I thought they were not going to work for me. I was impatient and although I was desperately seeking professional help, I thought I knew what would work best for me and what would not work at all.

Being dissociated on top of the rest of my issues, I created a lot of confusion in my therapy sessions, not realizing that I was the one making the sessions ineffective. The problem was that my prior therapists didn’t realize it either. No one could get me to focus or shift my focus for even a few moments.

Having been to several therapists over the years, I thought I was somewhat of an expert on therapy. I had come to view counseling as the bandage that worked for a while but was ineffective in the long run. I saw the distraction processes as a total waste of my time. I was very afraid of being taken advantage of and felt unsafe. I saw therapists as being in a position of power, feared saying no to anything they asked of me in case they decided to withhold the help I needed. Coming from a lifetime of abuse, I had huge trust issues which really interfered in my ability to concentrate on any one thing in the session.

Looking back today, it is a good thing that I went along with this technique of changing my focus to get me thinking in a different direction even for a few moments. I say that I went along with it because although I was aware of it happening, I didn’t understand why it was important and therefore didn’t want to talk about what I saw as insignificant subjects. However it was those brief moments of distraction from the serious stress I was under that opened a crack in the armour I wore.

In my history as a client, not every therapist that I went to used a distraction method like this one. I really do see now that my focus, as Norm mentions in his video this newsletter issue, was very narrow. I was hyper aware and I had a huge need to be distracting, but I didn’t like to be distracted.

Gentle persistence on neutral subjects works for clients such as I was. Getting me to pause for a second and think in a different direction went miles towards getting me to pause for whole moments on the more serious issues.

To Your Success,
Darlene Ouimet


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