What does “spitting in the client’s soup” entail?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Adler partially borrowed the underlying concept of this technique after he had observed boys in a private school dining hall. The boys would spit in their neighbor’s soup because the person would refuse to eat the soup after someone spat in it. Adler’s intent in using this technique is to spit in the client’s soup of excuses and hidden goals. When therapists reveal the hidden purpose of a client’s symptom or behavior, they deprive him or her of the secondary gains that the symptoms provide. Similar to the boys in the dining hall, clients may decide not to eat the soup after the therapist has revealed the hidden purposes behind their behaviors. A mother who enjoys making her daughter feel inferior may continue to do so even after the behavior is pointed out; however, the reward for the mother’s behavior has diminished considerably.