Exploring Clients’ Relationship with Their Meds

As both a prescriber and a therapist, Frank Anderson believes that therapists need to take a more active role in exploring clients’ relationship with their medications. After all, therapists know quite a bit about how to handle a troubled relationship when they see one, even if it’s between a person and a chemical agent.

 Frank Anderson on how to help clients explore their relationship with their meds.

According to Frank, an expert in Internal Family Systems treatment, the chemical effects of pills is only part of their impact. Often, he says, it’s not a chemical misfire that results in a medication not working, but people’s unspoken reservations about medication that negate or reduce its effects. But what’s the solution when clients may not even be aware that they’re fighting their medication?

Frank asks them to regularly check in their inner parts, some of which may be on board with the meds and some which may not. “This isn’t voodoo or magic,” he says in this brief video clip. “It’s about people listening to their sensations. They’ll know what goes on in their body if they just listen.”

In the Networker Webcast Series Meds: Myths and Realities, Frank explains his unconventional “I educate, you decide” approach toward medication, as well as how to explore the subtle, often ignored thoughts and feelings clients have about their medications that can often determine the outcome of treatment.