What should I do? What would you do?

answers come from conversation

Many of us have come to rely on other people’s alleged expertise for answers to difficulties in our lives. As Americans (as Westerners?) we’re conditioned to ask “the experts” what to do. Whether it’s doctors, researchers, or public policy people, we believe that there is “an” answer, and that the experts know what it is.

The past few years have made the folly of this approach apparent to many. But we’re still inclined to put difficult situations into binary terms, and to ask an expert, or a friend, or social media, what “the answer” is to situation X.

Should I divorce my husband? Should I quit my job? Should I try to reform my academic department or keep my head down? Should I let my children have a friendship with this other family?

There’s no “the answer” to many of these questions, at least not an answer that someone else can dispense for us. This is frustrating when we expect or hope that someone else who “knows more” will be able to give us a simple formula. My psychotherapist has taught me indirectly, over time, that answers develop through conversation, and through weighing context, likely outcomes, and my own ability to tolerate options A, B, or C.

As you may know, I have a consulting/coaching service where I offer one-hour video appointments to people facing life difficulties. While I specialize in situations involving narcissism, abuse, and Cluster B behaviors, I’ve had many clients who did not have an easily identifiable personality-disordered “villain” to lay the blame on. For some, they’re dealing with friends or family or colleagues who have dysfunctional tendencies but who don’t seem to rise to the level we’d call personality-disordered.

People also book time with me just to have a conversation with someone who they believe sees the world more clearly than the people around them. I’m happy to be that conversational partner who won’t make someone feel crazy or judged, or punished, for noticing the political and cultural insanity around us.

What I’ve noticed, both in clients who have a pressing and specific problem, and in those who just want general conversation and exchange with someone who isn’t woke or brain-captured by The Current Thing, is that people tend to come to me when they’re ready to make change. They’re ready to at least start the process of making a decision about a relationship, or they’re ready to finally have an honest conversation about what they truly think of cultural issues without censoring themselves.

What I offer is not psychotherapy. I am not a degreed or licensed mental health professional. But what I do with clients is in some ways “therapy-adjacent.” We are often discussing trauma, dysfunction, and our own means of dealing with it. As a well-read layman in the psychological literature, and as someone with personal experience being trapped in abusive relationships and trapped in my own dysfunction, I hope to give people a peer-to-peer example. I cannot solve anyone’s problems for them. But I can walk through their problem with them, help them lay it out truthfully, help them see it from several sides, and talk with them about the most likely outcomes of the possible solutions.

Many clients want to know if they should cut contact with an abusive family member, for example. As I tell them, I cannot say what the right decision is for them, but I can help them see the likely outcomes of keeping the status quo, or of changing the parameters of a relationship, or even ending that relationship. It’s important that clients weigh the pros and cons of each approach, then take time to contemplate that. Only after those things have been considered can someone make a decision that is right for them.

Oh, sure, I’ve had clients where it was obvious to me that they were dealing with a personality-disordered, abusive loved one who will never change and will never give the client the love or respect that she should be able to expect. If that is the case, I will level with the client and let her know that it looks unlikely that she’ll ever have the father-daughter relationship she craves.

But the decision has to come from the client, and it has to work in the context of his life. Some people, for example, are facing the death of a Cluster B parent who never cared for her children in life, and is now at the end of hers. Should my client stay in contact and nurse mom through her dying days, even if mom is incapable of accepting or giving love back? Maybe. Some clients seem to need to do such things to live up to what their conscience tells them. Others seem to need to cut the cord, even in extremis, because they have nothing left to give. Some people just can’t take it anymore; I was one of them.

I can think of two clients who were danger of losing their lives to a deranged family member. In those cases, it was alarmingly clear that the problem person in their lives was capable of killing them, and that there were warning signs that could not be ignored. In those situations, I’m blunt and to the point. With one man, I said, “Your son is very likely to kill you. He’s giving every indication that he wants to, and he’s assaulted you before. If you do not put him out of your life and protect yourself, I think I’m going to read about your murder on the news.”

Thankfully, these situations are rare; I can only remember two out of hundreds of client sessions. But they are not nearly as rare as we would hope when the context includes a family with Cluster B and/or addiction problems.

Mostly, though, those who book time with me do so because they sense they’re at the stage of life where they are capable of making a change. It might be cutting off a relationship that’s been dragging them down. It might be limiting contact with a loved, but often impossible, family member. It might be accepting that the client’s professional field has too many landmines for non-woke-compliant people, and it’s time to look for other work. Or, it might be that a client gets enough genuine validation from our conversation to show him he’s not the crazy one. Sometimes that alone is enough to let someone continue in a sub-optimal but necessary job, or to let go of some emotional investment enough to make work bearable.

Whatever the situation may be, most people I talk with say that the conversation was useful and gave them some clarity and confidence they did not have before. That’s the outcome I hope for. Helping people learn how to help themselves is more satisfying, and ultimately more productive, than an outsider trying to solve their problems for them.

Do you have a problem you’d like to talk through? Or, would you like to run some ideas by someone who won’t judge or censor you for wrong-think? I’d be happy to have a conversation with you.

To book time, please visit joshuaslocum.net. Please note a couple things:

—Paying subscribers/supporters to this Substack, or to my weekly show Disaffected, get a discount. So do returning clients. There is no special code; it goes on the honor system. Choose the lower price if you’re a supporter or returning client.

—If you’re facing money problems, email me at jslocumconsulting at gmail and we will work out a price you can afford. I’ve had money problems too; I know how it is.

—If you do not see a time slot on my calendar that fits your schedule, email me and propose alternate times. I’m happy to accommodate those when I can.