Should I move out of home?
Should I stand up to my boss?
Should I go travelling with my sister?
Therapists field a lot of Yes/No questions like this.
We are tempted to answer them, to say Yes or No – after all we are being paid, surely we can sell some answers our patients can take home with them!
But most of us are trained – or have discovered the hard way – that advising people about their lives when we aren’t the ones living those lives is fraught. If it goes wrong, we may feel responsible; if it goes well, we may prevent our patients from taking the credit they are due.
Only in situations of clear danger to our patients do we speak up and advise them what to do. Otherwise the best we can do is help our patients think, help them notice how they feel as they picture different outcomes of a big decision, and draw on their own expertise in their lived experience.
A technique I find helpful when supporting a patient to work through a big decision, is to allow for parts of themselves to disagree.
‘Part of me loves living at home and never wants to leave, but another part is bored there and wants to try something else’
or
‘Part of me hates my boss and wants justice, but another is scared and points out that the job is ok really’
or
‘Part of me knows this might be my only chance to travel with my sister, but part of me hasn’t forgiven her and worries we’ll fight’
Putting conflicting parts within you into words that another human can listen to and show they ‘get’, can really help your nervous system to organise them, and work out which way to go.
Hence my job.
Yes or No? You decide, I try to help you with that.
Important decisions are rarely simple, and no choice is likely to be perfect, but from imperfect options the ‘least worst’ can be found.
Our nation is now faced with a Yes/No question it must answer by law. Both cases have flaws, neither is perfect. But we must choose the ‘least worst’ option, the one on balance of probabilities most likely to turn out ok.
The Yes and No campaigns are of course fighting with gloves off for the attention of your different parts.
So, when you think about the Yes or the No vote getting up, how do you feel?
Is part of you – like many public voices – hopeful and inspired by the idea of constitutional recognition and a Voice for First Nations people, and some potential relief of decades of anger, sadness, guilt or shame about colonisation?
Can at least part of you trust the people that have created and driven this referendum process and the changes it offers?
Maybe you have other parts that resonate with public voices wary of changing our constitution in case it derails our political and legal system, or of giving our First Nations people power they might not deserve or may misuse somehow. We all have parts of us that fear change; because we can never fully predict the future, every change requires trust, which is hard to do when wary.
Parts of us can be wary of governments, activists, lawyers and the scariest stereotypes of Aboriginal people; those parts can struggle to trust in the process that has taken decades to get to this point.
When you work out which parts of you have the fairest case, and fit most closely with your values – your deepest-held beliefs about what is right – you can make a decision you can look yourself in the mirror and smile genuinely about.
Only you can know.
Right?
So this brings up an interesting point. We can agree that only the voter can vote – only the person whose choice it is can really know what’s right for them.
As therapists know, other than in cases of immediate danger, there’s really no place for well-intentioned advice from someone who doesn’t live the life of the person whose choice it is.
But hang on…isn’t that what this referendum is all about?
If I can’t tell you how to vote, it follows that your vote and mine should not deprive First Nations people of a chance to change a system that’s for too long been telling them how to live their entire lives.
Therapists don’t tell people how to live their lives, but they do collect patterns for a living, along with increasing amounts of hard neuroscience to complement their crafts.
And no matter what school of psychology you’re trained in, most of us can agree: a life of fear is small; reasoned risks are essential to change.
It’s risky to trust, but to live a life of not trusting carries the risk of not living.
So I let my patients decide for themselves of course, but when it’s my life, my vote…
Well, I’d rather see what happens when I trust.
My Doctor's Handwriting 