Maybe

8 July 2023

 

This is a blog about a state of mind I have tried to foster in others. If I could do it, I would be the most successful psychotherapist known to humanity but alas, I cannot create motivation in another human being. Still, that inability hasn't stopped me looking for ways to help people turn corners, particularly away from addiction or behavioural cycles that keep them from thriving.

In that vein, I started using the word “maybe” with people in SMART Recovery meetings and now with clients.  This is part of two approaches used in therapy: motivational interviewing and/or Socratic dialogue—two similarly aimed interventions.  These have helped people who hadn’t the inner spirit to believe they could make significant life changes, like leaving addiction behind.  For such people, and they’re usually new to the therapeutic realm, “maybe” can be a hinge.

A hinge allows a door or window sash to move in such a way that potential increases or decreases in area.  Such movements admit or restrict light and fresh air—graceful ushers, both, of changed views.  And the changed view sought is of one’s own capacity or psychological resilience.  If I believe I can change, that belief in itself acts as a first step for it opens up possibilities in my mind which were previoulsy unopened.    

About midwinter of this year (2023), as I was driving east on Main Street, at MacNab, in Hamilton, I saw one of those roadside signs with the ridges on which you affix moveable black letters.  It said, “Dwell in possibility.  Emily Dickinson.”  Writing this, the excitement within those words still races through me.  Her words are so much more impactful and gracious, they’ll surely work!  And so I added dwelling in possiblity to my lexicon of therapeutic terms.   

To dwell in possiblity is to inhabit the space of maybe.  To inhabit the space of maybe is to begin changing.  Within that change is one of the fundamental lessons of treating addiction: the person with the addictive behaviours must want to quit before it happens.  Doesn’t matter what her therapist, mother, sister or dog wants—it is what she wants that makes the difference.  Which brings us to Hamlet, possibly the perfect foil against which to reflect the shine of Stoicism. 

The contrast between Hamlet and Stoicism arises through action and inaction.  Hamlet is the contemplative side of philosophy, whirling upward into barely visible vapours, while Stoicism is about grounded and prioritized moral action.  The relevant passage, near the end of the play, finds Hamlet thinking about the state of being of a dead sparrow.

“...there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.  If it be now, ‘tis not to come: if it be not to come, it will be now: if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, V.ii.230-233).  I use the readiness is all with respect to clients.  If they’re ready to work, therapy is more successful.  If they’re not ready to work, maybe later. 

If you are in touch with a person with addictive behaviours, who’s not yet ready to quit, let her be.  Be kind to her.  Everyday she’s aware of what she’s doing and wants to stop doing it.  Just being accepted within a recovery group may open the door that leads into the space of maybe.

Dan Chalykoff is (finally!) a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying).  He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes.  He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas.  Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery.  Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.

References

Clark, W. G. & Wright, A. (Eds.) (1939). The complete works of William Shakespeare arranged in their chronological order.  Nelson Doubleday, Inc.