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Before You Call It Resistance
A one-page field note for clinicians
Field note, 1 page, PDF, instant download.
On Etsy it is listed as “Resistance in Therapy Reflection Worksheet for Therapists, Psychodynamic Clinical Note, Therapeutic Alliance, PDF”. After payment the file is in your Etsy purchases, and Etsy emails you the download link.
Resistance is rarely the wrong word, but it tends to arrive too early, naming the phenomenon and closing the question in the same breath. This one-page note holds three questions, about the alliance, about what the behavior is doing for the patient and about whose timeline is being interrupted, to read after a session that left you reaching for the word. Sometimes it will still fit, and the point was only to make sure it was the truest word available.
Abstract
Read the abstract
The word resistance tends to arrive early in clinical thinking, naming a phenomenon and closing the question about it at the same time. This one-page field note proposes a pause before the word is written in a session note. It offers three questions: what would have to be true about the alliance for the behavior to be the safest available move, what the behavior is doing for the patient that insight has not yet done, and whose timeline the behavior is interrupting. The note is designed to be read after a session that left the clinician reaching for the term, and its aim is not to argue against the concept but to make sure it remains the most accurate description available once the alternatives have been considered.
Who it's for
Any clinician, of any orientation, who has written "resistant" in a session note and wondered afterwards whether it was a finding or a feeling.
Contents
- Three questions to sit with before naming resistance
- How to use it: after the session, before the note
Format and license
- Format
- PDF, 1 page
- Delivery
- Instant download from your Etsy account once payment clears
- License
- For one therapist's own clinical practice; worksheets may be printed for your clients
- Status
- Educational material for clinicians, not a validated instrument and not clinical advice
Included in
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