on why questions

hello everyone, yes I am still alive. Over the past couple of weeks it has been a very exciting time for me. I have graduated with my Masters degree. I am in the process of building a private practice with a group of my colleagues. I have job interviews next week for some contract work. Everything is going good. I am going to try to blog a lot more. I have been trying to work on getting my life organized.. I want to talk about why questions.

I was a meeting a couple weeks back, with a client. This client is someone that I have provided support for her family. This is a individual is that I have grown to respect. Thiswas a planning meeting of some type. Yes I am being a little bit vague, because I went to be able to protect my clients privacy. Some of the individuals in the meeting, I felt like they were trying to seek a explanation of why something may have happened that calls the client to become involved with are system. They were asking a why question.

Now I have to say that sometimes we can not explain somethings. What we tried to do is figure out ways to explain the unexplainable. Often times when we do this, we seek to control the client's activities. I have, coming to the realization that some things we cannot explain. As mental health professionals we do not have to answer these difficult questions. We often try to do this because we need a explanation. What we do is to facilitate a process, that allows the client to reach their full potential. This process also allows the client to recognize the abilities that they already have.

I believe that there is a different way of doing this. Instead of asking why did this happen, ask what can we do together so that this does not happen again. Often times we cannot explain why, all we can do is recognize that forgiveness is possible. As a mental health professionals, we do not judge or condemn. We give client's hope that change is possible.