Trauma-Focused ACT A Practitioner’s Guide to Working with Mind, Body & Emotion Using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy by Russ Harris

Author:Russ Harris [Harris, Russ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-14T18:55:04+00:00

Motivation

Clients may say, “I have to be tough on myself. That’s what stops me from screwing up,” or “This is how I motivate myself. If I go easy on myself, I won’t get anything done.” We want to validate that in the short term, this can indeed be motivating; but in the long term, it usually has the opposite effect. The well-known Carrot and Stick metaphor is useful here:

The Carrot and Stick Metaphor

Therapist: (playfully) You have a pet donkey, right? Carries your goods to the marketplace?

Client: (playing along) Err, yeah, of course.

Therapist: And there are two ways to motivate that donkey, right? Beat it with a stick—and it carries the load to escape the beating. Or coax it with carrots—and it carries the load to get more carrots. The more you use carrots, the healthier and happier your donkey. But the more you rely on the stick, the more battered, bruised, and miserable your donkey becomes. So being hard on yourself—is that carrot or stick?

Client: Yeah, it’s the stick. But then how am I supposed to motivate myself?

Therapist: Well, luckily, we have something much better than carrots—we have something called “values.”

From here therapy segues into learning self-motivation through values, values-based goals, and compassionate self-encouragement. The Two Coaches metaphor (similar to the Two Friends metaphor) is often useful for perfectionistic clients and others who cling to self-criticism for motivation.

The Two Coaches Metaphor

Therapist: So what’s your favorite sport? (Client answers.) Okay, so let’s imagine there are two teams of equally talented players, and they each have a coach. The first coach motivates the players through being harsh, judgmental, and critical and focusing on everything the players do wrong: “That was pathetic!” “You’re useless!” “You’re not even trying!” “I can’t believe you did that!” “How many times do I have to tell you?” “You screwed up this, you messed up that, and you completely loused up the other.”

The second coach motivates the players through kind, supportive feedback and encouragement, acknowledging what they do right as well as what they do wrong: “You did A, B, and C really well today. And I can see you’re improving at D and E. And I was stoked you remembered to do H and I when J happened. I notice you seem to be struggling a bit with F and G; let’s have a look at what’s going on there, and see how you can improve on that. Yeah, I know you messed up with X and Y, but hey—we’re all human; we all make mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up about it; let’s go over it and see what you can do differently next time something like that happens.”

There are lots of published studies on this topic—and what we know is that harsh, critical, judgmental coaching in the long term leads to demotivated players and poor performance. Kind, supportive coaching is far more effective; players are more motivated and performance is better. Have you ever had a coach/teacher/manager/parent who used the harsh, critical method with you? What was that like for you? Which

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