I first came across Frank Farrelly the creator of Provocative Therapy back in 2004 and its true to say he totally changed my thoughts about effective therapeutic work. Here are three ways to know if a therapist is using Frank’s approach with the skill and attitude that Frank intended, or doing a very poor imitation of a quite brilliant approach.
All work is done in a friendly conversational manner with no “pre frame”
In Provocative Therapy the therapist works only in a conversational manner ‘as if talking to an old friend.” There is no “warning the client about being provocative” as that makes for a very artifical construct and exactly not what Frank intended. That’s why you will never see Frank or myself work witrh such a pre frame! The skill in using Provocative Therapy is to work in an elegant conversational manner, rather than simply scrolling through a series of pre determined techniques.
My experience is that many therapists and coaches find this extremely difficult to master as it requires a great level of ease and confidence. Over the years, I talked to Frank a lot about this and he was pretty dismissive of many trainers (and especially NLP trainers) who sought to dumb down his work into step by step instructions. In my own Provocative Change Works approach I remind all students of the need to pay attention to the client’s verbal and non verbal responses and to always challenge the client’s thinking, rather than try to “guide them” to some imagined goal that the therapist of coach considers “appropriate”
Its not about being “comedic” or “funny”
Another misconception is that the therapist is trying to be funny. Yes, humour can be a result of what happens in a session, BUT its not about trying to tell jokes or to be funny. Individuals who frame Frank’s work in this way, miss the real purpose and elegance of the Provocative Therapy approach. I’ve seen some terrible attempts to dumb down Frank’s work into ‘Provocative Coaching” which a colleague described as “Frank Lite”. That said, we can learn a lot from the best stand up comedians in terms of communication and artists such as Stewart Lee are highly skilled in engaging and provoking an audience. Lee is also excellent at telling stories to engage an audience, a tool that Frank was quite brilliant at doing.
Working in “the here and now” without relying on techniques
My talk therapy and coaching approaches rely on adhering to a series of techniques. This is especially true in the world of NLP, where I often joke about NLP folk “NLPing on the client!” There’s nothing wrong with learning and using techniques, BUT an over reliance on such things means that the therapist or coach is less attentive to the actual client. There are some approaches which are almost all based qround techniques and such individuals often have a real problem with Provocative Therapy.
I taught NLP for many years, before developing the PCW model, which I now teach globally. Provocative Therapy was the inspiration and catalyst for Provocative Change Works and Frank Farrelly left me his archive of work when he passed in 2013.
