Therapists are like the sweepers in the winter olympic sport of curling.
Curling, for those who are not intrigued by the sport, involves hurling a heavy sphere down an icy lane (like a frozen bowling lane) with the goal of landing in a particular spot.
What really makes the sport odd is the addition of two people who use brooms to sweep the ice and try, without touching the sphere, to get it to move in the right direction.
That is what it is like sometimes being a therapist. You want to sweep the ice (remove all the obstacles) so that the person moves in a good direction. But you usually cannot directly intervene. If you do then the change is your idea and even if the person does it once he or she will probably not persist.
Somehow you have to make the right direction seem appealing and clear out of the way the tricks of thought (“I could never do that” or “what’s the use”…) that people use to protect themselves from the pain of acknowledging the ways they fail to take the best care of themselves (as we all do).
And, just as in curling, the key is knowing when to “sweep”.
It is surprisingly hard work. But when it works, there is nothing more satisfying.