Disengagement Competence
“Love it, leave it or change it!” This well-known saying is metatheoretically very wise. Disengagement competence refers to the strategy ‘Leave it’. People can also inappropriately hold on. The final building block of regulation competence is being able to let go, recognise that with this person, with this employer, with this colleague something is not possible, and one must obtain it elsewhere. Being able to walk away instead of spending your life in permanent frustration is, however, not possible for some people. It then must be this one! Separating oneself from such fixations and walking into the unknown is often an issue for counselling. Here, also, it is important to look closely as to whether the problem really lies in the environment or in the perception of this environment. If it is the latter, it will not help if one leaves. One will take one’s own pattern into the next workplace and the next relationship and then, Groundhog Day, one will repeat the old in the new.