Effective Techniques for Responding to Highly Resistant Clients
Course Content
This is a fast paced, highly practical training designed to teach innovative approaches and ideas to achieve successful outcomes with clients who:
- Are challenging
- Court-referred
- Unmotivated
- Give you “Yes, but…” or “I don’t know” responses
- Are involuntary
- Who blame others
- Who resist taking responsibility for creating change
- Change their focus
Such clients provide a unique challenge to professionals attempting to provide quality services to both the client and referral source. You will learn what to do in order to prevent, avoid, and resolve what has traditionally been deemed ‘resistance’. Numerous techniques that are applicable across a wide array of clients and problems will be presented, discussed, and illustrated through video demonstrations.
Emphasis will be on ‘how to’ aspects of maximising the potential for client movement towards goals and positive life changes. Techniques presented can be integrated with all theoretical approaches Specifically, difficulties in managing challenging clients will be approached as a phenomenon of the dialogue and interaction between the practitioner and the client. Techniques will be offered to create impactful client-practitioner dialogue through the meticulous use of language and other skills in the moment-to-moment interactions. Those trained in traditional Motivational Interviewing will find the techniques offered will take their skills to the next level and circumvent inherent weaknesses in the approach.
Upon completion of this training, participants will have a broad array of techniques to add to their repertoire to improve client outcomes and to aid in reducing the stress and burnout that accompanies their most frustrating clientworker interactions. Included in this training will be new, cutting-edge research on the use of priming in the therapeutic dialogue. Priming statements join with clients’ current psychological state and readies them for new perspectives and behaviours. The research on the impact of priming is exceptionally compelling yet, this powerful linguistic tool is rarely discussed with regards to its clinical implications.
Ultimately, attendees will learn what priming is, the theory behind what occurs in the brain when priming occurs, and how to incorporate priming into the dialogue with the client for improved outcomes.
Learning Objectives:
- Conceptualise what has historically been deemed ‘resistance’ in a manner that empowers workers to avoid, circumvent, and utilise it for client benefit.
- Describe and understand the most common errors workers make that hinder client movement.
- Understand and explain the inherent power of the therapeutic impact of language and employ numerous specific linguistic techniques that dissolve barriers with mandated clients.
- Understand methods for dealing with common difficulties such as “Yes, but…” and “I don’t know” responses.
- Explain the putfalls of over-questioning and how to employ more effective alternative approaches.
- Define what priming is and describe how and why it has such a significant impact on mental processing and incorporate priming principles into the therapeutic dialogue.
CPD Information For Mental Health Professionals
Enjoy complete flexibility with 100% self-paced learning you can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Pay once for lifetime access.
Course Duration: 6 learning hours
Certificate and CPD hours: On completion you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion to support your CPD records.
Assessment: Complete a short quiz at the end (80% pass mark), which you can resit as many times as needed.
Lifetime Access: Your access to the course does not expire, so you can revisit key concepts anytime you want a refresher for practice.
CPD Eligibility: This program may be suitable for CPD for professionals such as:
- Psychologists
- Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- Social Workers
- Community Workers
- Mental Health Nurses
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Occupational Therapists
CPD requirements vary between professional bodies, so please check with your association or credentialing body to confirm you can claim CPD hours/OPD points for this program and what evidence they require.
Meet Your Instructor
The most frustrating moments in therapy - when clients resist, argue, or shut down completely - often reveal the greatest opportunities for breakthrough. Clifton Mitchell has spent over 30 years studying therapeutic resistance, transforming how practitioners understand and work with their most challenging clients through groundbreaking techniques that turn opposition into collaboration.
As Professor Emeritus at East Tennessee State University and international clinical trainer, Dr. Mitchell has delivered over 300 keynote presentations worldwide, teaching clinicians that resistance isn't the enemy of therapy - it's evidence that real change is attempting to happen. His book Effective Techniques for Dealing with Highly Resistant Clients revolutionised the field by showing practitioners how resistance emerges from therapist-client interactions rather than client pathology. His latest work on therapeutic priming demonstrates how subconscious programming can accelerate habit change and therapeutic outcomes.
Dr. Mitchell's expertise spans therapeutic resistance management, priming techniques for behavior change, legal and ethical issues in mental health, and the strategic use of language in therapy. His research-backed approach helps clinicians recognise when their own intervention style creates resistance, how to match influence methods to client readiness, and ways to use preconscious priming to enhance therapeutic gains. His entertaining, humor-filled training style makes complex concepts immediately applicable in clinical practice.
What sets his training apart is practical transformation. Mitchell doesn't just teach theory - he shows clinicians specific language patterns, timing strategies, and intervention sequences that dissolve resistance and create client engagement. His game-show format training on ethics and his priming techniques give practitioners tools they can implement immediately with measurable results.
For your practice, expect to gain specific techniques for preventing resistance before it starts, practical methods for working with oppositional clients, and priming strategies that accelerate therapeutic change. His approach particularly benefits clinicians who feel stuck with difficult clients or want to enhance their therapeutic effectiveness through scientific applications of influence and suggestion.
Quick Win: Mitchell's "influence hierarchy" teaches clinicians to match their intervention style to clients' current willingness to change - preventing resistance by starting with the least forceful approach and escalating only when clients are ready.
Qualifications
- Ph.D., Counseling Psychology, Indiana State University, 1992
- M.A., Clinical Psychology, Western Kentucky University, 1976
- B.A., Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1974
- Licensed Psychologist (retired)
- 30+ years of clinical training experience
Authored Books
- Priming: Programming the Mind for Habit Change and Success (2018, Mind Management Publishing)
- Effective Techniques for Dealing with Highly Resistant Clients (2007, 2nd edition, Clifton Mitchell Publishing)
Teaching & Roles
- International Clinical Trainer & Keynote Speaker, 1988–present
- Professor Emeritus, Department of Counseling, East Tennessee State University, 2015–present
- Professor & Clinical Mental Health Concentration Coordinator, East Tennessee State University, 1992–2015
Featured Publications
- Psychotherapy Networker, Psychotherapy in Australia, Journal of Personality Assessment
- Men's Health Today, Barron's Financial Weekly
- Research on therapeutic resistance, subliminal messaging, stress and coping, personality types
Speaking & Training
- Psychotherapy Networker Symposium (annual 2010–2020)
- Ericksonian Foundation Conferences (multiple years)
- International presentations: Australia (2014, 2016), Singapore (2013–2015), Canada (2014–2015)
- American Counseling Association, American Mental Health Counselors Association conferences
Ready to transform your most challenging therapeutic relationships? Discover how Dr. Mitchell's resistance management techniques can turn your most difficult clients into your greatest success stories.
Feedback & Reviews
This course includes:
- Lessons 1
- Topics 6
- Duration 6 hours
- Quizzes 1
- Language English