I hate sitting in line at a fast food drive-up window for 25 minutes only to drive off with a burger that tastes like I’m chewing on one of my old belts. I hate taking out the trash, and I hate resistant clients with addiction issues who refuse to talk.

Fortunately, there’s usually a burger joint with a shorter line across the street that can match the initial establishment’s questionable level of cuisine. As far as the trash thing, let’s just say I’m experimenting with bribes that seem to have a modicum of success with my six and nine-year-old sons. Finally, I may not like resistant clients, but I have developed a paradigm to help them.

Seventeen-year-old Kurt Weber represented the quintessential resistant client. Mrs. Weber was unable to hold back tears as she explained that her son Kurt had no plans whatsoever of cooperating with today’s initial counseling session. I handed Mrs. Weber a tissue as she got down to specifics about her son’s poly-substance abuse as well as his horrific behavior at home and school. “You’re our last hope Dr. Rosenthal, and Kurt announced on the ride over here that he wasn’t going to speak with another dumb shrink or counselor. He then went on to say that, unless you could help him secure a power amplifier, which is ridiculous of course, he wouldn’t say a word.”

What came out of my mouth next wasn’t exactly a level five on the old Carkhuff empathy scale and quite frankly seemed to shock Mrs. Weber. “Tell me about this power amplifier thing.”

“Oh,” she said, “We don’t need to discuss it, he was just trying to be sarcastic. All he cares about is his stereo equipment. He spends hours building bigger and better stereo speakers, but he never spends one minute on his schoolwork. If he spent one tenth of the time on school that he spends on his stereo he’d be an honor’s student.”

Mrs. Weber went on to say that Kurt had not spoken with his father, a prominent surgeon, in months. Despite the fact that like many other helpers I was trained to avoid or at least minimize small talk as a viable intervention, I was convinced that Kurt’s need for a power amplifier was my meal ticket for a successful session. As I made my sojourn to the waiting room I had to think quickly. I opened the door looking professional with his chart in my hand and called, “Kurt Weber.”

Kurt sat with his arms folded across his lap and gave me a menacing glance. His non-verbals were clearly supporting Mrs. Weber’s contention that her son wasn’t exactly going to be the next poster child for motivated clients.

The ball was in my court. “You interested in a low distortion power amp that will drive a four ohm load for a dirt cheap price?” I sounded more like the kid sitting next to him in wood shop than a professional armed with four college degrees.

Kurt looked dumbfounded. He shrugged his shoulders and followed me reluctantly back to the office.

Before I tell you what I did next, let me be very specific about what I didn’t do. I did not in any way, shape, or form say, “Okay tell me about your problem,” or, “What types of drugs are you using?”

When you are using a small talk paradigm, switching gears to a traditional interview mode too rapidly is dumb, dumb, dumb, and dumber! You must — I repeat — must complete your small talk session. (Now stay with me, this gets really interesting.)

We sat down and I leaned forward in my chair like a friend ready to reveal a closely guarded secret. I was nearly whispering. “What if I told you that I know a place where you can get your hands on a high-powered stereo power amplifier ... dirt cheap ... that will blow the knobs off anything you can get at the local stereo chain store?”

Kurt was hooked. By the end of the session I had made a call to Kurt’s dad who would be driving him to the “secret pawn shop” I knew about, nearly 150 miles away, where Kurt would purchase his dream power amplifier. As an added benefit, the trip gave Kurt and his dad 300 miles to rekindle part of their lost relationship.

Just for the record, Kurt did snare his beloved mega-decibel amplifier and now I became a pretty cool guy he could talk to rather than another “dumb shrink or counselor.”
Here are six immutable laws for using small talk during your sessions:

1. The small talk must be related to something the client is interested in. Thus, unless you’re counseling a meteorologist, that leaves out the weather. Admitting that you used drugs or got drunk in college is self-disclosure, not small talk, and will not generally yield the same desirable results.

2. The small talk works best when it is initiated at the beginning of the session.

3. Since the small talk must be initiated rapidly, you should scour the client’s chart to see if you can ferret out something he or she might be interested in.

4. If you don’t have a chart, try talking to someone who is familiar with the client such as a parent, like I did in Kurt’s case, caretaker, or former counselor (with a release of information).

5. If you have no viable sources of information, merely take an educated guess about what the client might be interested in! If you’re wrong, you’re wrong — so what. The traditional interview will still be there if you should need it. But if you’re right, you’ve struck therapeutic pay dirt. When I worked with automotive workers I often assumed they would be interested in something to do with cars and I was often correct. If you work with teens it might be sports, dating, or something related to music.

6. If you discover in the first few minutes that the client is resistant, begin asking questions to discover if he or she has an interest that could provide a link of common interest.

The new improved cure for bowling
Not everybody reading this article works in a plush addiction treatment center with rosewood desks, marble floors, and music piped into the parking lot. Some readers (such as probation and parole officers, caseworkers, and child abuse workers), nevertheless, must deal with the addicted individual in his or her home. Amazing as it sounds, small talk can be even more valuable in this seemingly less than desirable treatment setting.

Let me share an actual example from the trenches. This example also illustrates the point that you must think quickly and that it helps to have a smattering of knowledge about the subject in question.

Years ago, when I worked for the state child abuse unit, we were informed that a man with a severe gambling addiction had a young child who was suffering from lead poisoning and was refusing to take the child for medical services. Since lead poisoning can cause irreversible brain damage it was imperative that we intervene.

A worker had indeed visited the home. When the worker announced that he was from the child abuse unit, the client cursed the worker out and told him never to return. Someone who had heard about my modest success using small talk to get my foot in the door (a mixed blessing, I assure you) suggested I take over the case.

As I stepped on the front porch of the home the screen door was open giving me a bird’s eye view of the home. As I scanned the home I was virtually looking for anything that might serve as fuel for small talk. My eyes landed on a new model of a urethane bowling ball that had just been released.

I knocked and could see the client approaching. “Hey, is that a new urethane ball? I hear those things break hard on the back end of the lane and hit like a truck.”

Within minutes we were thoroughly engrossed in a discussion about bowling. After about five minutes the client said, “Look I don’t think you’re here to talk to me about bowling. My child has lead poisoning, you know, and it can be serious. I’ll go get the papers from the doctor. And me, well, I could use a little help with my gambling problem. I wasn’t going to tell that first worker anything. He just didn’t talk to me like you.”

So, what do you say to unenlightened know-it-all supervisors who haven’t read this article and protest that, “We’re not paying you big bucks to discuss bowling and stereo equipment with your clients?”

“Quick, tell me who J. Lo is dating?”

Howard Rosenthal, EdD, MAC, is a frequent contributor and the author of the Encyclopedia of Counseling, Master Review and Tutorial for the National Counselor Examination and The Human Service Dictionary. His Web site is www.howardrosenthal.com.

This article is published in Counselor, The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, June 2003, v.4, n.3, pp. 40-41

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