Jacqueline Connors weighs in on what is helpful for people trying to make a change.
For years, I sat inside two large behavioral health systems — first as an administrator overseeing Napa County’s Alcohol and Drug Services, then as a behavioral health manager at Kaiser Permanente. I watched many clients move in and out of treatment. Not because the therapists weren’t skilled.
Not because the clients weren’t trying. Many returned because something fundamental about how we treat the mind was missing — and most people, therapists and clients alike, could feel it even if nobody could explain it.
Here’s what I noticed: we are very good at helping people understand themselves. We are less effective at helping them change. Understanding is cognitive — it lives in the part of the brain that can articulate and reflect. If a pattern was formed before you had language for it — before you could think your way into it — you likely can’t think your way out of it now either.
We live in a culture that prizes self-awareness. We podcast, journal, meditate and read numerous self-help books. We know, with remarkable clarity, what we need to do differently. And yet, in the actual moment, we do the old thing anyway. That’s not a failure of will. It’s not a character flaw.