Expecting the Ability to Satisfy
If you stand in the desert, feel your thirst and take your longing for a drink very seriously, it is not much use, because you may know that there is no kiosk around the corner, where you can buy something. If people have experienced the world as a place in which there is no one who looks out for them or who might notice when they have succeeded, then they will not act on their desire to reveal themselves. Why would they, when the world does not satisfy it? Many people find it difficult to understand that their own beliefs about the world are an expression of their own history and experience of it. But taking the step of counting on the ability to satisfy their own desires once again, when, for decades they have assumed that this doesn’t exist, is necessary for change. Counsellors do well to check what view a client has of the ‘world’, to which the inability to satisfy a need belongs. Therefore, the knowledge about the satisfying of a need is a part of regulation competence.