Self-help books can be great, but when you take a hardcover book and throw it as hard as you can at someone’s head, knock them into deep water, and stand there watching them drown ... you’re not helping them. You’re traumatizing them. Some people just need love, not tough love.

There is, in fact, a science to this stuff. It’s still being refined and it’s actually the focus of my current work, and while it’s not settled science yet, one thing we do know is that behavior change efforts will almost always fail if you fail to meet the person where they are.

Find out a person’s psychosocial history, up to present day. Figure out the barriers they’re facing, & identify their strengths. Target your approach to those things. If it doesn’t work, don’t assume it’s the individual’s fault — rather, consider what *you* could do differently.

And please, never try to “help” a traumatized person by inflicting further trauma and never try to shame or threaten or scare someone into changing themselves, unless your goal is to inflict serious psychological damage by reinforcing harmful internalized attitudes & beliefs.

If your calling is in the field of behavior change, I’d suggest taking a little time to build your patience & gain a deeper understanding of why this field is such a hard one. If you can’t hold someone’s hand while they walk through the fire — repeatedly — then it’s not for you.

Also, never assume you know a person’s current needs based on a narrow look at their past, & PLEASE never assume you understand how another person processes trauma.

ie, don’t force a woman who is a rape/violence survivor into an enclosed space with men making sexual comments.

My point here is to make it clear that good intentions aren’t enough to prevent serious harm from being inflicted on a person who has suffered severe trauma(s) and struggles with ongoing mental illness. Your idea of help may very well be their idea of psychological torture.