Describe emotional payoffs and their role in the counseling process.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

a. One thought pattern that can serve to keep clients stuck in counterproductive behavior has to do with the ways certain behaviors and thoughts yield emotional payoffs.
b. Gestalt counselors maintain that everything we do is designed to affect our environment in a way that will yield some kind of satisfaction. Each impact has potential for positive benefits and negative consequences.
c. Whenever a client is distressed about some life event, seems stuck in some recurring negative behavioral pattern, or is unable to move out of some untenable situation, we can ask what it is she gets out of repeating the same destructive pattern of behavior or staying in a destructive situation.
d. First, we can ask ourselves, and when the time seems right, we can ask her.
e. Typically, your client will deny that there is any positive benefit. Scratching below the surface of this denial, however, will typically yield some kind of satisfaction gained from this behavior pattern.
f. Most situations like this are complicated and defy simple solutions, but it can be helpful to examine underlying motivations. Discovering these “payoffs” can be a helpful step in this process. There are also some serious deficits—financial and emotional—associated with this behavior. For example, not working also means not earning an income or deriving satisfaction from doing productive work. The counselor can reflect with the client on these as well.