Creative Connections & Client Communications
Tell Me something I don’t Know!”
“Tell me something I don’t know” is a closing section headline used by news commentator Chris Matthews on his NBC television show. –I’ve always been intrigued with how provocative that question is for commentator specialists, political pundits, historians of the current government scene appearing on the Show.
Tell me something from the ‘inside track’; bring it out into the open.
This information probe operates closely to my discovery about AP=Saturn/Pluto [See “Getting Skeletons out of the Closet”; archives of “Counseling Insights,” click on October 30, 2005.] We are getting to something hidden, overlooked, smothered, etc.
A client was corroborating a very deep, complex development issue with his father. He was surprised that I got right to it in the opening minutes of the consultation. He supplied some harrowing details of his private anguish about it all, but even so, I added: “Please, tell me something I don’t know about this situation.”
This is a not an unreasonable probe for more information, sensitively focused to stimulate disclosure of private, highly personal information. –My client replied quickly: “My father never spoke to me throughout my childhood.”
This was a powerful statement of fact which fit prominently into the developmental scenario we were piecing together.
My client this morning: a young woman who suffered long with a dominating mother in a household of violent parental fighting shared with me that her mother has started to relinquish control but has given her a “bottom line”, admonishing her to “make money.” I asked her, “Now, please, tell me something about this situation that I don’t know.”
My client thought for a moment and then said loud and clear: “She expects me to make money to take care of her. –What a scenario of extended control.
The exchange with the client is based upon the client’s trust of the astrologer; you’ve earned the position of confidant. –Additionally, “Please, tell me something I don’t know about this situation” implies that you already know a great deal about it, and that this knowing comes from astrology and from your experience with similar situations in your past experience. It builds your position of expertise. I regard it as a moment of confidence and enrichment in the consultation situation.
Try it! You’ll be rewarded.