In the Art of building successful relationships with PCW we consider the following two questions
1. What are you connected to?
2. What are you connecting to?
What are you connected to?
When we ask this question we are talking about everything you have in terms of resources. I’m not a massive fan of the term “resources” but in this case the term works really well. By this I mean resources in every sense of the word including skills, personal circumstances, essentially the cards you have been dealt in life.
What are you connecting to?
This refers to how you are connecting to other people and the world around you. This deals with how you pay attention, what you pay attention to and subsequent outcomes. This relates to all “activity” and including how you think, what you think and all sensory processing, state generation etc
In the previous blog I outlined two psychological types, “the cut and run” type tends to work in a more dissociated manner with a strong feeling of self-righteousness, the “appeaser” works in the opposite way and is essentially defined by those around them. As previously stated there are no “good” or “bad” types these are simply observations of human behaviour.
What do you want in your world?
Ultimately the question I pose to clients is “What do you want in your world and what is the outcome of that being in place?” The most successful people who form relationships whether in business or personal life appreciate that we can agree, disagree and agree to disagree on matters, it’s the discussion and dynamic interactions that make life all the more interesting! As Voltaire once said
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”

I was talking recently to a professional colleague about what I call “the victim mindset” and “attention seeking behaviours” Such individuals who consider themselves as “victims” believe that “others” are responsible for how they feel, think and overall situation in life. This kind of thinking is increasingly very common in society and I have seen many clients with this attitude. The individual insists that their life predicament is wholly the result of other people’s actions. This reminds me of the “it’s not your fault stance” in Provocative Therapy and Provocative Change Works approaches.

Such individuals always blame everyone else for their life situation and when actually given advice and assistance they often complain that they are being “bullied!”. Essentially they want to have their cake and eat it, they request assistance and advice, but don’t want to actually do anything differently or take the advice. They then voice “concerns” and “moans” either anonymously to anyone who will listen to them and never the actual person they have an issue with.

I have increasingly witnessed this behaviour in recent times and some of the examples are really quite fascinating. This victim mindset usually leads to longstanding resentment with the person increasingly ruminating about how they feel they have been wronged by others. Some even decide against all advice to have their day in court and seek legal rulings, again rather than discussing directly with who is seen as the responsible party. This kind of behaviour often occurs in online interactions as the “victims” seek attention to support their beliefs of being “wronged” by other parties. I have seen many examples of this over the years and the ‘victims” make ever more ludicrous claims about being wronged by others. My advice is always to refrain from engaging such individuals as this only encourages them to continue with further attention seeking behaviour. Many such individuals find it hard to interact or work with others and seek out like minds that will agree with the perceived wrong doing. Online this creates a pack type mindset and this behaviour very common on social networking groups such as Facebook.

Common phrases uttered (always to others) by such folks include –

“He/She made me…”
“They did X to me…”
“People should…”

This behaviour occurs in both business and social contexts. In the business context the imagined victim is unable and unwilling to separate social interactions from professional relationships and unsurprisingly this creates all kinds of problems. The victim believes that being confronted with other points of view constitutes being “bullied” rather than being called to account for their actions. Much of these problems continue because the victim won’t actually clarify the “issue” with the person they imagine is bullying them! They will however spend endless hours moaning to others and engage in attention seeking behaviour as “the victim”
This lack of accepting personal responsibility is the central theme to this behaviour. They also seek to apportion ALL BLAME to third parties who they imagine are “responsible” for making them “feel this way” By playing the victim role they can attempt to endlessly elicit sympathy and remain the centre of attention. This imagined victim stance is very different to genuine victims in life who have real life problems. The central theme is being “wronged” by everyone else.

To quote a famous “Carry On” movie – “Infamy, infamy, they all have it in for me!”

The best advice I can give for working with such folks is to not be drawn into the attention seeking behaviour. They will usually insist that others behave and respond in a particular manner and have a hissy fit if they don’t get their own way. I have seen some wonderful temper tantrums and outbursts over the years and as my friend Andrew T Austin would comment “Your behaviour is not going to dictate my response” Often they will try to get attention by speaking to a third party and again the best strategy is do nothing, don’t buy into the bullshit. Many have used these manipulations for years and had everyone dancing to their tune! The “victim” always has a vested interest in maintaining the problem state and despite what they proclaim is ultimately not interested in any views other than their own. Of course different therapeutic practitioners may well disagree with these views and I welcome discussion, but fully stand by my observations based on many years of seeing this type of behaviour.

If you are a therapist or practitioner I strongly advise ensuring that you have a policy of setting clear guidelines for receiving clients. When I confirm agreeing to take on clients I always include this paragraph in correspondence confirming a session date

“Please read the private sessions section at http://www.nickkemp.com which details the many approaches I use and how to get the best from each client session. The site also details my Provocative Change Works approach for working with clients which is quite different to other therapeutic approaches. If you have any questions after looking at my site, please speak to me directly in person on 01274 622994.

No practitioner or therapist can guarantee total success, but most clients report great improvements in 2 – 3 sessions. Be assured you will receive my best attention at all times.”

Many such individuals who play “victim” tend to request refunds when the practitioner challenges their unhelpful mindset! The tragedy is that such clients don’t realise that they are literally victim of their own self-obsessed thinking and lack of appreciation to anyone attempting to genuinely help them! Most clients are a pleasure to work with and appreciate that they are paying for the time of the practitioner. However in rare circumstances some clients “that play the victim “can become obsessive. In all such situations never respond to such attention seeking behaviours and simply keep a complete record of all communications.
I also genuinely welcome anyone interested in discussion to post comments for discussion here below which is a far more constructive and positive way of interacting and which can only assist us all in developing better awareness of how to best serve clients seeking help
All blog posts are as clearly stated on this site my personal opinions from personal observations and experience over many years.

I have been asked to speak on the Pat Kenny show on New Year’s Resolutions shortly, and in contemplating this, I thought what New Year’s Resolutions would be most useful for my colleagues in their efforts to “spring clean” their working practices?
It occurred to me that having good working protocols and processes is something which does not necessarily come naturally to the top of ones “to do” list, but is one which is utterly essential.
One protocol which clearly highlights this is the complaint procedure.
Expect a Complaint at some point if you work with human beings
Any person who works with people, whether this is in a therapeutic or non-therapeutic capacity knows that at some point you will receive a complaint. This is absolutely inevitable bearing in mind human error occurs at some point, despite everyone’s best efforts and intentions, and that planet earth is full of people with wildly different expectations. It’s therefore essential to be very clear about how any such situations are handled, with the best interests of everyone involved at heart.
Most complaints can be resolved very quickly and easily with sensible, safe and timely protocols and processes in line with health and safety at work legislation. The benefits are clear, to provide a better service to clients, to avoid compounding a situation ,to learn appropriately from any significant event for future practice, and to avoid spending massively disproportionate amount of time on something that can be resolved quickly and to avoid costly legislation, amongst numerous other benefits to everyone involved. Some complaints can be wholly reasonable, some unreasonable, some frivolous and in some extreme cases malicious. In all instances there needs to be a clear and consistent policy in place to safeguard all interests involved and to protect and support all parties.
I would strongly advise any colleagues out there who have not as yet considered the importance of such a policy , to support both themselves as practitioners in their abilities to provide an excellent service to their clients ,and their clients as individuals , to do so.
Basic common sense
The very first and most fundamental step that needs to be taken if a complaint is made is to immediately inform the person involved about what is happening!
This gives the person whom the complaint is about an opportunity to offer explanation and context for what is occurring. The party who received the complaint should not undergo or initiate any form of investigation before this has occurred or they could find themselves in all manner of problematic scenarios which in extreme cases could have legal or criminal repercussions.
In these situations it’s crucial to professionally gather information and to be mindful that “factual information” is what is important not a person’s impressions about what “they imagine could have taken place”. Professional reputations can be unwittingly called into question if proper processes are not adhered to and that can result in all manner of very problematic scenarios through lack of sensible thought and due process
The media have in recent times been held to account, I watched the press enquiry with great interest and I personally found it fascinating. This week ITV are running a documentary about Christopher Jeffries, which is an excellent example of this scenario. It would seem that the media became a bit over enthusiastic in their reporting and the guy’s reputation was ruined as a consequence. Jeffries recently commented
“But there’s one particularly striking difference to me. In the film, I have to be persuaded by various people to take action. Whereas, in fact, my very first words to the solicitor when he was driving me away from the police station were: somebody has got to be sued for this. That was absolutely my determination from the start.”
Paper trail all communication
If you are on the receiving end of a complaint make sure you properly paper trail all communications. Avoid discussions which are not documented or where you don’t have representation and/or proceedings are not properly documented. My personal experience is that some businesses are actually quite clueless in these situations! One of the benefits of working in the recruitment sector for fifteen years is that it taught me to pay attention to detail in all communications. Years of teaching PCW, NLP and Hypnosis have also taught me that often people have very fuzzy thinking which is fine unless it starts to impact on a person’s reputation in which case I 100% share Jeffries view.
Sometimes individual s have little choice other than to do this in order to protect their own professional reputations. In such cases the real tragedy is that collective time could be so better spent if there was better critical thinking and discrimination taking place so people engaged brain before jumping to erroneous conclusions.

References – Complaints Procedure- http://www.ctha.com/codeofpractice/
Client Expectations – http://www.nickkemp.com/Nick_Kemp_debunking_the_magic_wand_myth.php

This week I am transferring over audio files in the studio and backing up the raid system where I keep all client files. Every client I see and have ever seen using PCW is recorded using one of my Sony audio devices. They then receive a copy of the session on CD or data stick. There are currently 5000+ hours of audio footage on one of the hard drives and that’s not everything to date from the Leeds clinic.
I also keep full paper records of every client and comprehensive client notes. When looking through the different types of client condition it occurred to me today that a high proportion of problem issues I see on a weekly basis fall into the “anxiety category” and that anxiety issues are all about unhelpful anticipation and “fast thinking” Interestingly many clients have an excellent ability for “fast thinking” and problem solving that can work really well in a work context, BUT when applied in a self-diagnostic manner the very same strategy results in all manner of problems for them. The problematic feelings that they have that create “the stuck state” often come from unhelpful fast internal dialogue so they are literally telling themselves that “this is a problem” The voice temp exercise is of course superb as one of the approaches to resolve this.
Another interesting statistic is that “obsessive gamblers” are by far and away the people least likely to actually book into a session from an initial enquiry. There is a less than 5% uptake compared to the usual 90% uptake from the initial enquiry for help. People who obsess about gambling usually (but not always) have very poor ability to pay attention for more than the short term. When they make contact they feel like they need “immediate help” but this butterfly type thinking usually means that they don’t follow through to do anything about it! That having said the clients who follow through usually do very well and those are usually the ones who really appreciate that they have a genuine problem. Most gamblers I have met find it hard to form long term relationships.
Just as some clients obsess about the future and what it may hold, others fixate on the past and everything they experience is framed by past experiences. You can see these behaviours daily interactions and it’s very obvious in online groups as well where people can fixate on what they image to be true. Often many anger types fall into this category where they “feel that everything should be” a certain way and “people should behave” in certain manner! Essentially they see themselves as the person “who is right” in deciding “what is appropriate” Of course this is just one perspective and most angry people discover that the universe is not bending to their personal will! I have seen many clients with anger based issues and if this is not resolved the person usually experiences very poor health or in extreme circumstances the person ends up in prison. I have written many reports over the years on behalf of private clients with these kinds of problem issues.
These types of clients only see the world from their own fixed viewpoint and are very certain about how everyone else “should be” They are mostly disinterested in any other points of view until life becomes so painful that they are forced to reflect on their behaviours and thinking. As Frank Farrelly would say “When the pain begins, the learning starts…”

PROVOCATIVE THERAPY
Provocative Therapy is named from the latin-provocare-to “call forth from” and is effective in its ability to call forth new and useful behaviors from clients who have previously exhibited negative behaviors and beliefs. Provocative Therapy works with the client within their bio-psychosocial world to assist them to develop more effective behaviors and strategies.
Originally developed in 1963 by Frank Farrelly while working with chronic schizophrenics, the techniques used in Provocative Therapy, with its sensory rich language, are applicable to the full range of client issues, groups and family work .

Historical Context
Trained as a master’s level social worker in 1956, Frank Farrelly, the founder of Provocative therapy, worked with Carl Rogers for many years at Mendota Mental Health Insititute, Madison, Wisconsin, and was a therapist on Rogers’ research project with chronic schizophrenics

He took part in therapy listening sessions where client interviews were taped and presented for discussion in weekly meetings with colleagues. In 1963 he began to develop Provocative Therapy. He found that by confronting his own feelings in response to a client, and being emotionally honest, he could build trust very effectively and rapidly. The level of honesty, self-awareness and flexibility required of the provocative therapist in an interview may be quite challenging for an aspiring provocative therapist to achieve, and supervision is required during this process.

Provocative Therapy was eventually used in individual therapy, group therapy, family therapy, and within the therapeutic community work at Mendota.
Farrelly subsequently became a Clinical Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin and Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. In the 1970s he was one of the individuals that Richard Bandler and John Grinder modeled when they were developing Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He also worked in private practice and gave seminars and lectures around the world until his death in 2013. Provocative Therapy continues today, and provocative techniques have also been subsequently incorporated by his students into Provocative Coaching, as well as into Nick Kemp’s Provocative Change Works.

Theoretical Underpinnings

Provocative Therapy shares many of the existential-humanistic theories, in that it assumes that people can change at any point in their lives, and that choices people make impact on others and society. Additionally it embraces post-modern beliefs in the importance of understanding the nature of communication and language, and that solutions can be found relatively quickly. Given these theoretical underpinnings, 12 assumptions that drive the theory include:

1. Growth occurs in response to challenge. If a challenge is not overwhelming, a “fight” rather than “flight” response is stimulated, and people develop coping strategies and new and useful behaviors. Farrelly would say “when the pain begins the learning starts.”

2 .People can make major change in their lives, and maintain this, regardless of the duration or degree of the problem state.

3. Change doesn’t have to take a long time.

4. If individuals receive useful feedback they can make changes themselves.

5. Clients need to recognize the choices they make impact on society and take responsibility for their behaviors. As Farrelly would say, “some people need boundaries taking out, and some people need boundaries putting in”.

6. People are treated as they are subjectively perceived.

7. Therapists have the responsibility to have their client hear feedback given to them, and to have their clients act on this feedback, by taking responsibility for their actions, and developing their own solutions to their problems.

8. People have more ability than is generally assumed, and can develop new coping strategies and useful behaviors.

9 All experiences, including those in adulthood, are very important for the change process, and growth can occur at any point in a person’s life

10. The client’s behavior with the therapist is a good approximation of their habitual behavior.

11. Non verbal communication is significant; it’s not what is said but how it is said.

12. People can be understood

Major concepts

Most of the major concepts are incorporated in the twelve assumptions, listed under “theoretical underpinnings,” and the techniques that follow. In general, the approach tends to focus on demonstrating acceptance of the client non-verbally, and producing change in the client with appropriate provocation and humor.

Techniques

Although many techniques from person centered counseling, and other humanistic and post modern therapies can be used, some techniques specific to Provocative Therapy include talking as if talking to an old friend, use of sensory rich language, use of non verbal communication to demonstrate acceptance, use of humor, playing devil’s advocate, and being in charge.

Talking as if talking to an old friend.

The therapist talks to the client as if they are talking to an old friend, with a twinkle in the eye and affection in the heart, putting aside their professional dignity on behalf of the client. In addition the therapist uses the language of the client, in the present, and avoids professional jargon.

Use of sensory rich language and non verbal demonstration of acceptance

Using sensory rich, varied language, with metaphors and story-telling, verbal and non verbal responses, the therapist gets the attention of the client, and conveys their reactions effectively to, and on behalf of, the client, demonstrating their acceptance of the client non verbally.

This enables the client to confront their issues not avoid them.

Use of humor

Humor, exaggeration, and mimicking are used to lampoon the problem, not the client.

Humor is a key tool to assist the client to make insights and increase their understanding in an acceptable non overwhelming fashion.

Playing devil’s advocate

The therapist plays devil’s advocate on behalf of the client’s problem thus provoking the client to “do the work” and take responsibility for themselves.

Being in charge

The therapist uses all these devices to remain in control of the interaction, responding to what comes back from the client, rather than letting the client control the interview and avoid change.

Therapeutic Process-

Provocative therapy has 4 stages, the duration of therapy being 20-25 sessions on average, but can range from 2 through 200 sessions. The stages include:-

1)Assisting clients to confront their issues,

2) having clients acknowledge that change is required by themselves,

3) Assisting clients in clarifying their self image and the development of adaptive behaviors, and

4) Consolidation and integration of new behaviors.

See also:

Existential-humanistic therapies: overview; Person Centered Therapy; Solution Focused Therapy

Further Readings

1.Brandsma ,J. and Farrelly,F. “Provocative Therapy” Shields Publishing Co., Fort Collins, Colorado 1974

2.Rogers, C.R.(1951)” Client Centered Therapy” Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin

3.Freud,S.,(1928)”Humor.”International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 9:1-6

In the world of computers it’s essential to have a firewall to prevent unwanted viruses and other malicious elements reaching your PC. In this context a firewall is described as –
To protect (a network or system) from unauthorized access with a firewall.
or “a firewalled network”
The same in my opinion applies for human interactions! This blog contains personal observations on the importance of setting up definition in all communications and in some cases blocking unwarranted communications.
The Contribution of Social Media Hyperactivity and need for firewalls
In this era of social media and 24 hour news, I have increasingly begun to realise the importance of setting up “firewalls”. Facebook and other mediums serve a very useful function in allowing people to connect up in a new way. The downside however is that the clever idea of “FB friends” redefines the idea of “a friend” and many people who live literally in cyberspace with very little human contact begin to actually believe that “FB friends = real human friends” Of course this can be the case and this medium can be fantastic for networking but also create some quite delusional thinking, where online “friends” are then considered as actual friends in the traditional sense. In recent times I have begun to unfollow and even block a number of individuals who to me seems overly enthusiastic about posting political and religious posts. I just don’t want to see endless examples of these on a daily basis on my FB page, but of course I fully respect the right of people to post what they want as long as it’s not libelous…
Firewalls in gang warfare situations
The emergence of forums as well as social media have helped to create the whole “gang warfare” nonsense I blogged about previously . Unfortunately this can create all manner of problems for some such individuals who get a bit carried away with the “whose gang are you in?” type mentality. Of course in recent times legal prosecutions have made some people think twice before making libelous malicious and/or comments online. I’m all for discussion and debate, but when people start throwing around allegations that affect a person’s professional reputation then it’s a whole different matter…If you find yourself on the receiving end of such behaviour, my advice is quietly record everything and hand all the material over to an appropriate authority who will eventually hold such characters to account. Some of these issues can take a very long time to resolve of course and as somebody once said “the legal wheels grind in a very slow manner but of course grind extremely fine”

Unsolicited calls and the endless daft SEO emails
I have previously blogged about attention seeking behaviours and unfortunately many of us are bombarded with unsolicited phone calls, spam e-mails and other unwanted communications. Sometimes there seems no escape from this unwanted avalanche of unsolicited nonsense. It wouldn’t be so bad if some of these communications at least had some kind of considered thinking, but it most cases these are endless examples of lazy robot marketing, with no imagination whatsoever. I don’t know of anybody who has not been plagued by daft “SEO” messages promising to get your site “on the first page of Google” and other such nonsense. It seems that these appear on a daily basis and many come from “SEO experts” in India. Quite frankly most of these communications are plain embarrassing.

Increase in Profile = Increase in Attracting Craziness
I was told by a colleague a decade ago that as soon as I become more well-known I would attract all manner of attention including some jealous and very odd types! Again I have no issues with discussions and debate, but sometimes an increase in profile results in some obsessive types following you. The best advice in such situations is to NEVER ENGAGE or make any comments as this only encourages such characters. Sometimes is tempting to lay out some actual facts, but essentially it’s a waste of time and energy. Again quietly collate information and then make a decision whether to hand the evidence over to professionals who are best placed to deal with such scenarios.
Legal remedies
Sometimes you may need to go down a legal route, when people are totally unreasonable. In such situations always pay for the best possible support. Some folks would be surprised to know that in the last 25 years I have engaged legal services on three occasions with very unreasonable people and each situation on average resulted in an average of 40k in payouts, to me. Details remain confidential as a result the final settlements and I thank such characters for their stupidity. If you are involved in working with or training the public, you can be sure that you will never please everyone. Also be aware that when your profile increases, you will inevitably attract some very unstable characters. Such individuals will often spend hours online posting. A good example of this was a 63 year old woman who hounded The McCanns with abusive tweets – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2777145/Police-probe-trolls-sending-hate-messages-McCanns-Detectives-investigate-given-dossier-catalogues-remarks-including-death-threats.html What many such folks don’t realise is that if they make libelous or malicious comments online, even if they post in haste and then delete comments, those comments can still be found online. If you are on the receiving end of such nonsense, always to the following 4 rules
1. Gather all information
2. Be patient (don’t respond at all)
3. Follow legal advice to the letter
4. Buy something wonderful with the proceeds!
I have a policy of always spending such payouts on specific items, so when I look at a classic Fender Custom strat worth a substantial amount of money I think “X paid for that!” However this is not a route to take lightly, expect to allocate 8 – 10k to go down this route! Most people expect empty threats and as long as they apologize after quite malicious behaviour they will get off the hook. In their interests and all the poor other potential future victims I strongly suggest showing that there are consequences for such poor behaviour.

Final thoughts and doing what you love is what ultimately matters
It’s easy to waste a lot of time on such matters but I always advise people of the old proverb “Act in haste, repent at leisure!” Putting firewalls in place help to avoid inflamed situations than can result in wasting a huge amount of time. Ultimately most people have good manners and behave in a reasonable fashion. However it’s naïve to think that all people think and operate in this way. It’s smart to have firewalls in business and personal dealings, so you are better placed to focus on what you most love in life.

I am about to start the 2015 series of international training events and was reflecting on how similar many patterns of behaviour are across the globe. I am in a very fortunate position to be able to work with a very wide range of clients of all ages and backgrounds.
When clients seek help it’s because they are in distress and regardless of how much analysis they do, they remain in what I call ‘an emotional fog” This is where their emotional state literally clouds all thinking and they are 100% convinced that what they “feel” is what is true, not appreciating that there may be other perspectives. The difficulty for the client is that they believe totally that their reality is the only reality that exists.
This emotional fog usually results in blaming others and insisting that other folks are to blame for their situation. It’s similar to the victim mindset I blogged about previously and in the same way the client is so convinced of their own take on things they could be hooked up to a lie detector and they would most likely pass! While in the emotional fog they can’t entertain any other perspective and can become quite aggressive when challenged.
Spotting the signs
Often clients exhibiting this behaviour are extremely impulsive and make knee jerk decisions, usually from being hypersensitive to other’s comments. They also tend to store up resentment, so rather than communicating openly they keep an emotional diary. They tend to find it tough to maintain personal and business relationships with anyone who offers a difference of opinion. They will shop around for responses that fit their own views and tend to adopt a digital view on the world. Usually they have status issues and their internal feeling on how things should be is not reinforced by the reality of what is happening in the world around them.
How to deal with such issues with PCW
Many clients won’t seek help until they experience some real problems in relationships. As Frank Farrelly would say “When the pain begins the learning starts” The challenge for any therapist is that often the client requests help BUT only on their terms and when challenged is either in denial, becomes quite aggressive or starts to blame the therapist as being another example of someone who is “attacking them” Of course they “feel” this to be 100″ true but others around them can see a trail of destruction. In business situations the person is more interested in being “right” than the success of the business that requires some objectivity. In personal life usually this results in some quite erratic decision making. PCW challenges the client’s generalized assumptions and gets them to consider that although it may “feel” like a good idea, the resulting consequences clearly suggest otherwise.

This year I am running a new workshop on “the art of developing relationships in business and personal life. The idea came for this from running trainings on a regular basis in Asia, Europe and the USA where I increasingly noticed the patterns that make for really excellent relationships and those that result in problematic outcomes. In my business life I am fortunate enough to work literally all over the globe with many longstanding business partners. This year the number of training requests has doubled with new countries requesting PCW training. I am also blessed in my personal life to have been happily married for two decades! All of this has given me a great insight into the different ingredients that make for successful partnerships and of course these exact same ingredients work in all kinds of relationship situations.
Is the whole thing worthwhile?
One of the questions I ask in the forthcoming workshop on this subject is “When you think about this relationship right now, is the WHOLE thing worthwhile?” The responses are usually “Yes definitely!” “Absolutely not” or “yes, but with some considerations” Usually the “yes but with some considerations” response means that there needs to be a closer look at “the trades” in relationship or “who gives and who gets what”
The Law of trades
Every relationship is a trade of some sort. A good relationship means that the trade works for both parties involved. If there is no “trade” occurring then essentially there is not actual relationship worth pursuing. This does not mean that everything has to been 100% amicable in the situation, there may be real differences of opinion and orientation BUT the whole thing makes it worthwhile for both parties. Any good negotiator appreciates that the nest relationships either in a business context or a personal context require ongoing communication and attention to detail.
When it’s time to part company
Despite best efforts some relationships don’t last for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there is not enough common ground for the expectational sets to properly align. Sometimes one party can’t see beyond the detail and realise the bigger picture. In business I always look for companies than are reliable and consistent in their dealings and crucially remember that every client can be a potential doorway to many other clients. There’s no absolute right or wrong in these situations rather simply action and reaction in the situations

Different psychological types
There are many different psychological types of people that form different kinds of relationships. There are no right or wrong, good or bad psychological types, but it’s interesting to explore how these types exhibit specific behavioural patterns.
Here are two examples of these different types.

The “Cut and Run” type
These people tend to find it difficult to form long term relationships and will tend to “cut and run” from the situation. They tend to be more concerned about “what is right” and “who is right” rather than work in a cooperative manner. They have an idealized view of “how things should be” and “how people should respond” so they are often unable to entertain views other than their own. This means that they see the world in a very digital manner and will endlessly be seeking to find their idealized person or business partner.

The Appeaser
The appeaser is very different to the cut and run type. In this instance the person will seek to please rather than to voice a definite point of view. Essentially they are defined by their environments and those around them. They will rarely initiate actions rather follow the lead of what they see from others. They will tend to respond out of obligation and what they “imagine is the right thing to do” rather than what they genuinely feel. This creates all manner of problems over a period of time and often these individuals find it difficult to communicate in an honest and open manner.

Final Thoughts for now
Let me stress these are observations of behavioural patterns and “the person is NOT the behaviour” they exhibit. However it’s in my view useful to explore some of these patterns and figure out how best to form useful and lasting relationships that make for a more fulfilling life. I’ll be running this 3 day workshop in Osaka Japan this July and then look at bringing it to Europe. It’s a fascinating area and I’m really looking forward to working with different groups around the world exploring this subject.