Just let me alone, Mother

I saw my friend, the psychology professor, the other day.  I took the time to ask him what he is reading and thinking about these days.  He is a valuable source of new ideas.  He mentioned "motivational interviewing".  He said the emerging area owes much to Carl Rogers.  A main focus of motivational interviewing is resistance.

If your mother looks at you and says you should lose weight, you may immediately feel resistance.  Even if you think it would be good to lose some weight, you may not say that to her, especially at the time.

Personally, I enjoyed the book, Silas Marner, when we were assigned it in the 10th grade.  But when I mention the book, many people recall it as one of those boring books that was required reading.  I have seen that phenomenon repeatedly.  A truly arresting and enriching book gets assigned by the teacher and immediately the students feel a distaste for it.  They experience resistance to the idea of required books, assigned reading and the latest recommendation is labeled negatively within a minute or two of the students learning of its existence! (Silas is one of the many excellent books that are available all the time online for free.)

Virtually, the same thing happened with The Scarlet Letter.  I really haven't read many classics but that one was short and famous so I gave it a try.  Wow!  No wonder it has a place in history.  Who can forget the sweetheart who took the brunt of the shame and the phoney, lilly-livered louse who held his lying and hypocritical head high and let her bear it all alone.

[The Scarlet Letter is another great book steadily available online for free.  This one is part of the wonderful collection at Bartleby.com. If you are reading these words, you can look at Silas or Scarlet right now!]

Reading teachers, most teachers in fact, believe that reading can be a very major stream of developmental influences and deeply desire students to read books that will educate them.  However, counselors who are trying to assist a person out of alcoholism or tobacco or drug addiction have an even more life-saving duty.  It ain't an easy task.  Trying to assist (and nothing more!) clients to see that they themselves believe in living and want to live and live well is the task of motivational interviewing.  Just interviewing, not advising or making other moves that encourage that old resistance to pop out and yet again betray a person.