Do you have the skill to counsel "difficult" clients?
A "difficult" client – in psychotherapeutic discourse, this term denotes that category of people seeking help who show particular resistance to accepting assistance. These are clients who exhibit resistance, demonstrate aggression or passivity, intentionally lie, or otherwise avoid cooperation with the psychologist, yet find themselves directly in front of the specialist, in a counseling session.
If you practice, you have likely recalled such a client right now.
So, what exactly should you do with them, the difficult ones?
How not to lose confidence in yourself? How not to think about them in your personal time? How not to burn out? How to actually help or understand that it's better to decline working with this client?
The Faculty of Professional Development (FPC) of MSUPE invites you to a new professional development program: "Specifics of Counseling 'Difficult' Clients," developed by Elina Valeryevna Tretiak, an instructor and practicing psychologist with extensive experience.
Training in this program will allow a specialist to master specific methods for diagnosing "difficult" behavior and techniques for overcoming therapeutic impasses; it will also increase confidence in working with clinically complex cases. (And your "difficult" clients will have a better chance of being understood and receiving successful therapy).
The program's strength is its practice-oriented nature: 70% of the study time is allocated to analyzing real cases and practicing skills. The case study method will teach participants to apply productive ways of resolving complex situations, minimize conflicts, and achieve therapeutic results.
The program explores the specifics of working with difficult clients through the example of three categories:
- Clients with chemical addictions and gaming addiction.
- Clients with eating disorders.
- Clients with codependent behavior.
A separate module is dedicated to each category, covering:
- Recognizing types of "difficult" behavior.
- Techniques for analyzing the secondary gains of "difficult" behavior.
- Techniques for helping "difficult" clients and self-help within the framework of preventing professional burnout.
- Modeling and implementing psychocorrective and psychotherapeutic techniques for assistance, self-help, and their integration into practice with clients demonstrating problematic behavior.
The program's value lies in providing a holistic image of working with a difficult client, allowing you to focus precisely on the difficulties rather than glossing over them, leaving them for you to "overcome independently."
The knowledge will help you understand past cases and cope more successfully with future complex cases. The program will prepare you to work with those who were brought by relatives while not denying the problem themselves; with those who seek to control you in dialogue, disregarding your personal boundaries; with those who resist change.
You will "observe" work in the context of therapy for addictions, codependency, and eating disorders, and also analyze diagnostic, psychocorrective, and psychotherapeutic techniques in working with such clients.
Start date: March 14, 2026
Duration: 72 hours
Document issued: Certificate of Professional Development
Tuition fee: 16,500 rubles
Location: Online, in video conference format with the instructor
Sign up for the program – on the website of the MSUPE Faculty of Professional Development.