What's the difference between an issue and a topic?
- BambooBeing
- Sep 30
- 2 min read
What's the big idea?
Helping clients become more aware of patterns in their lives empowers them to change their relationship to topics that create issues for them in various domains of life, not just the one that is currently keeping them stuck.
What’s a core distinction/tension here?
A core distinction is between what a clients sees as an immediate problem or surface issue to be tackled and the deeper topic in which it is rooted which is often buried.
Without that distinction we can play 'Whack-a Mole", solving problems in one area of our lives only to find them pop up in another area. For example, avoiding conflict with a colleague by agreeing to take on extra duties at work only to find it creates conflict at home, or within oneself.
The tension is often experienced as an urge to tackle something that feels urgent and take action rather than facing and working through truths that create emotional discomfort. Resolving this tension is therefore less about finding things to do and more about meeting our deeper selves with compassion and understanding.
What is a different perspective we can take that might help?
Working together with our clients as sympathetic ‘investigators’ trying to understand what is making something challenging, rather than ‘problem solvers’ trying to solve a client’s problem.
What powers or pathways does this reveal?
With an investigative outlook, we help clients become more aware of their unconscious patterns and how and why they are taking the actions they are, so that they can better examine both their ‘will’ and ‘skill’ in certain situations. This builds deeper and wider capacity for the future than just solving for a single problem.e into our days.
What can we go out and try with others?
Having some ‘go-to’ investigative questions, or a rubric can help. Borrowing from the journalists toolkit can help: we have a guide to useful questions as this month's Tool Shed tool.
