Psychotherapy isn’t the same thing as politics. I’m convinced, though, that politicians and political parties need to respect some of its basic principles, if they want to earn and keep the support of the people.

Psychotherapy wasn’t a core part of my 30-year career as a school psychologist, but, about 40 years ago, I practiced therapy on a limited basis within and outside of my job with the schools. That modest level of involvement lasted for only a few years and I don’t claim the expertise of a career therapist. It did nevertheless provide a set of principles that I’ve found to be valuable in my work as a school psychologist, my personal life, and my column.

My approach to working with individuals and families back then was centered around the idea of resistance. Maybe a less judgmental word for it would be homeostasis, which comes from the field of biology. It’s the tendency of all living things to resist outside pressures that threaten to change their internal workings. Heat regulation is one example: the way our bodies work to stay between 97 and 99 degrees Fahrenheit in resistance to fluctuating temperatures on the outside.

Homeostasis or resistance also happens when someone comes to a therapist for help — or, for that matter, when a political party tries to help a nation move toward change. A problem behavior may be causing distress, but a person wouldn’t keep doing it if it didn’t serve some purpose, consciously or otherwise. A person — or a nation — will resist change until he‘s convinced, at a conscious and unconscious level, that it’s safe to do so.

My approach to therapy was grounded in an acknowledgement that the client’s resistance was more powerful than I was. It had homeostasis on its side and veto power over any changes that I might recommend. I tried to enter the client’s mental model of the world, the beliefs and fears that were the source of his resistance to change, and to operate within it.

I recall a story about famed hypnotherapist Milton Erickson that’s a beautiful example of entering the client’s world view. He was the director of a mental institution at the time. One of the residents, who insisted that he was Jesus Christ, refused to participate in the institution’s therapeutic woodworking shop.

The staff asked Dr. Erickson to talk to him, and he quickly overcame the client’s resistance by saying, “I hear you’re a carpenter.” The resident could hardly disagree and willingly participated in the workshop.

The key to overcoming resistance in a client, a voter, or a nation is to enter their world-view. We’ll then discover a positive intention, however misguided it may seem, underlying their resistance. Phobias are an obvious example — they seem to protect the person from being exposed to situations that he sees as threatening.

My goal as a therapist was to find the positive intention behind the client’s resistance, to show appreciation for its efforts to protect him, and to reassure him that I wouldn’t introduce any changes until he was ready for them. A therapist who admits to powerlessness against a person’s resistance can then become powerful as its ally, working from within to find a solution.

A political party must likewise respect a voter’s or a nation’s resistance to change, recognize the positive intent behind it, and create solutions that are responsive to it. The history of both political parties is one of disregarding the importance of homeostasis and resistance; failing to work from within the world-view of persuadable voters; overinterpreting supposed mandates; enacting policies that the public wasn’t ready to accept; and then suffering defeat at the next election.

The Democratic Party came to an end of this cycle last November. The Republican Party is now at stage one, as it enacts one unpopular policy after another under the delusion that it has a mandate. The Democratic and Republican parties must enter the world-view and adopt the language of the majority of the nation, instead to speaking to their MAGA and Progressive bases, if they hope to escape that cycle and become authentic voices of the American people.

Lowell Harp is a retired school psychologist who served school districts in Ogle County. His column runs monthly in The Ogle County Life. For previous articles, you can follow him on Facebook at http://fb.me/lowellharp.