The fundamental importance of the emotional relationship with the client to motivational work has certain consequences. In short, the motivational worker can only work with the clients with whom he feels a motivational relationship, and from this follows several corollaries.
It influences the selection of clients. The most efficient motivational work occurs with the clients with whom the motivational worker is already positively engaged.
The Characteristics of a Latently Motivated Client
The characteristic of a latently motivated client is that he quickly arouses powerful emotions in others. If the motivational worker is open to his own reactions, he will soon understand his client’s attitude. The client transmits his destructivity and his appeal for help to the motivational worker through his contact rebuses, both of which are charged with a great deal of energy.
As we have seen, being latently motivated means being in a desperate and helpless situation; such a client’s contact rebuses push the motivational worker up against the wall and compel him to adopt a particular attitude towards the client.
Everyone working with latently motivated clients faces a decision-making process, but it is often intuitive and unconscious. The motivational worker puts ‘more of himself into his work with clients for whom he feels more engagement (Motivational Work, Part 2, Motivational Relationship, pages 149 -154).
Case Study One
Fritiof works as a social worker at an office that deals especially with homeless clients. He has 50 clients, most of whom are drug users or alcoholics; with many, his contact is sporadic. They sometimes temporarily disappear or get sent away for detox, put in prison, or admitted to a mental hospital. Fritiof finds himself becoming particularly engaged in seven of his clients, but he has no special method to turn to. The rest of his clients he has less commitment to, and this sometimes makes him feel guilty.
Case Study Two
Hemming works at the same social welfare office and is training to be a motivational worker. He also has 50 clients. However, unlike Fritiof, Hemming has made a conscious choice to pursue a program of motivational work with three clients with whom he feels particularly engaged.
He is prepared to put a great deal of time into maintaining contact with them, which sometimes entails traveling long distances to meet them in prison or hospital. Also, Hemming realizes that he has also deselected other clients and has more formal contact with them.
This pains him, yet imposing boundaries on his motivational work comes as a relief, as it means there are no expectations on him to help everyone equally. He hopes eventually to extend his list of clients with whom he can pursue courses of motivational work simultaneously.
Discussion
Fritiof works intuitively, which means that he spontaneously commits himself to particular clients. However, he is not entirely focused since he also uses a certain amount of life energy with other clients and applies no special methodology in his work. He, therefore, has to rely on the intuitive detransmutation of his clients’ contact rebuses, given the absence of any theory to fall back on.
If Fritiof can intuitively detransmute a client’s contact rebus, he can start a course of motivational work, but he is in danger of becoming burnt out as he might end up taking on more clients than he can cope with. He also risks entering a demotivational process if he fails to detransmute a client’s contact rebus.
On the other hand, Hemming consciously selects and deselects clients and does not, therefore, risk-taking on too many. As a result, he can allow himself to focus more on the clients to whom he has chosen to commit, and his use of methodology increases his ability to detransmute their contact rebuses.