Blaming The Patient Quotes

“For all of us, there are also likely times when therapy simply doesn't seem to move forward as we imagined it would.

At this crossroads, we often question ourselves or blame our patients.

Between what our culture requires and what we have experienced in childhood, we might go either direction.

We have a particular challenge to feeling competent right now. Our left-centric society has done its best to codify the healing process, leaving us with a set of procedures and expected outcomes that don't welcome the individuality of our people of the fluidity of each person's unpredictable and unique process of recovery. This is doubly difficult, because when we follow the course culture provides, safety is already undermined to a greater or lesser extent.

I believe it wounds us when we feel we aren't helping a person because we set out with such good hearts to relieve suffering.

A well-practiced practitioner might try to guard our hearts by blaming our people's resistance.

When a wounded part of us is afraid we are inadequate, this often generates a critical protective voice to try to urge us toward a better performance.

In both instances, our ability to be present for our people gets lost in the need to protect.

How can we hold these experiences kindly, recognizing that they are part of the human experience?

Right now, we might be able to open the arms of inclusion to these parts of us.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships