With clarification, everyone can change their behaviour
"That's just the way I am" - a friend recently told me that this is a standard phrase her brother uses. She hears it all the time, for example when she points out that he looks at his mobile phone during their conversations or when he doesn't let others finish. Nice and easy for the brother, isn't it? After all, saying that you can't change nips any discussion about it in the bud. But is that actually true? Isn't it possible to change your behaviour? What makes it so difficult to develop personally? You can often find tips on this in popular literature - but they are of little help. This is because they usually start at a purely behavioural level. In my experience, as a coach or psychologist, it is important to ask the right questions first:
What triggers you when you think about the behaviour you want to change?
What do you associate with the old behaviour, what with the new?
What thoughts are preventing you from taking the first step towards change?
Questions like these help to define the blockade that is preventing the change in behaviour. Only in this way can underlying fears and worries be localised and dealt with. A change in behaviour is no longer burdened by negative thoughts: Sentences like "That's just the way I am." lose their meaning. I call this process 'clarification', in reference to the founder of clarification-oriented psychotherapy, Rainer Sachse. My approach looks like this: I use a special questioning technique to find out the deep-seated assumption behind an issue. I get my client to form a fundamental assumption about themselves (e.g. "I am not good enough.") or about others ("Relationships are not reliable."). In the next step, this is positively changed in a time regression, which is linked to the epigenetics approach, in a trance. This dissolves the blockage in the depths - new things can finally be dared without the fears continuing to play a role.