Health is such an enigma. Your patients and clients, by the sheer fact of coming to you, seek better health, a change in their health, getting back to health…some version of being healthier in their lives. Our role is to co-facilitate, to collaborate with them toward their health goals, not to fix them. That means engaging, really engaging with who patients are as people not merely focusing on the symptom or issue being presented at any given time. Daniel Siegel has a wonderful concept of the process of health; he likens it to “bathing in a wide open pool of possibility” (The Mindful Therapist). Our patients are at choice, always at choice about their own possibilities – choice is the greatest power everyone possesses about themselves. The irony is everyone lives in comfort zones; comfort is the ‘beast’ we know and often it can be the place where patients resist change. Comfort can look like a groove and be such a rut. The pool of possibility is wide open for our clients and it is their choice about how to change their behaviours toward their desired style of life. For health professionals, our engagement can open up any patient’s pool of possibility by asking seemingly simple, open-ended questions such as, “I have some information about your particular issue, would you like me to share it with you”? Seeking permission invites our patients into their own pool of possibility, their choice/s, their health, and their responsibility.
