"Yes, But...": How to Therapeutically Confront a Client's Excuses Using Adlerian Theory

"Yes, but...": When Empathy Alone Stops Working

A client walks into your office and repeats, almost word for word, the same complaint as last week. "I really did try what we talked about. Yes, you're right—but this week was just so busy, and my partner wasn't any help." Or: "If only I'd gotten enough love from my parents growing up, I wouldn't feel this stuck now."

When this pattern loops, many clinicians feel a quiet, creeping burnout. We were trained that limitless empathy and reflective listening are the foundation of good work—yet here is a client who hides behind excuses and refuses to change, and we start to wonder: Am I actually a competent therapist? Why do clients who say they want change keep manufacturing reasons not to?

Alfred Adler offered a strikingly useful lens for this. He saw these behaviors not as raw resistance but as one expression of what he called safeguarding tendencies. Excuses, in particular, work like an elaborate fortress the client builds—often outside of awareness—to protect a fragile sense of self-worth. This article unpacks the clinical logic of client excuses through an Adlerian frame and lays out concrete confrontation strategies for turning those excuses into a therapeutic turning point.

Why Clients Can't Stop Making Excuses: A Teleological Reading

Where Freud traced symptoms back to past trauma, Adler asked a forward-looking, teleological question: What does this symptom accomplish for the client right now? The reason clients keep reaching for excuses is simple—it's the most effective tool they have for protecting a vulnerable self-esteem.

Excuses as a Safeguarding Strategy

Adler believed that clients struggling with neurotic patterns are, at bottom, afraid of failing at the core tasks of life—work, friendship, and love. Because the inferiority and sense of inadequacy they'd face if they failed feels unbearable, they build an escape hatch in advance. The excuse becomes an alibi that keeps self-worth intact when things don't work out.

• Defending self-esteem: Believing "It's not that I couldn't do it—circumstances stopped me" means never having to confront a fear of personal inadequacy.
• A distorted bid for superiority: By using excuses to neutralize the demands of others (the therapist included), the client paradoxically feels a sense of control—I'm the one steering this.

The Two Classic Forms: "Yes, but" and "If only"

Adler distinguished two dominant rhetorical patterns. Telling them apart in session matters a great deal, because each calls for a different strategy.

Table 1. Comparing excuse types and their clinical features through an Adlerian lens.

Therapeutic Confrontation: Cracking the Shell, Restoring Courage

Uncritically absorbing a client's excuses only reinforces neurotic avoidance—but pointing them out aggressively fractures the therapeutic alliance. Adlerian technique threads this needle with a set of deliberately precise interventions.

Strategy 1: Spitting in the Client's Soup

The deliberately provocative name captures the idea: you name the hidden payoff a client gets from the symptom (the excuse) so clearly that the behavior is no longer as "tasty"—as useful—as it was.

1. When the client says, "I didn't have time for the homework," you don't criticize.
2. Instead, you interpret the purpose: "So by not doing it, you protected yourself from the fear that it might not have gone well if you had tried. If you never attempt it, there's no failure to face."
3. The client can still keep making excuses—but never as comfortably as before, because now you both know what the excuse is for.

Strategy 2: Acting "As If"

This is the antidote to the "If only" excuse. The client believes action is impossible until conditions are met. The therapist proposes reversing the order.

• Ask: "If the problem you just described were solved, what's the first thing you'd want to do?"
• Intervene: If the client answers, "I'd walk into a room and meet people with confidence," you offer: "Just for this one week, what if you behaved as if that problem were already solved?"
• This is a behavioral experiment that quietly supplies the courage the excuse was concealing.

Strategy 3: The Push-Button Technique

Clients often cite an emotion or a situation as proof they have no control—"I was angry, I couldn't help it." This technique restores their awareness that they hold real choice over their feelings and their stance. You guide the client to vividly recall a pleasant memory, then a distressing one, and notice that the accompanying emotion shifts with the "button" they press. The point lands experientially: feelings follow the thoughts we choose to dwell on.

Putting It Into Practice: Timing, Tone, and Cautions

In the room, timing and attitude are everything. Adlerian confrontation isn't a sharp blade; it's a warm lamp held up in the dark.

Kind, but Firm

Confrontation is not an attack. It's holding up a mirror to a purpose the client can't see—or won't look at. Approach with curiosity: "From where I sit, you tell me you want change, and at the same time you seem to keep one foot on the brake—using excuses—to stay in a place that feels safe. How does that land for you?"

Always Pair It With Encouragement

Strip away the excuse and the client can feel suddenly, nakedly exposed. So confrontation must be followed by encouragement. Attend to process rather than outcome, highlight the client's existing strengths and contributions, and build the felt sense that they can face life's tasks without the excuse as a shield.

Use Early Recollections

When a client clings to one particular type of excuse, explore their early recollections. If they remember being harshly criticized for childhood mistakes, then "It's not my fault" may still be functioning, decades later, as a survival strategy. When you understand and empathize with that origin, the client finally finds the courage to lower the shield.

Conclusion: Meeting the Real Client Beyond the Excuse

A client's excuses can wear a therapist down—but they're also a vital signpost pointing to that person's deepest fears and needs. Adler's insight is clear: making excuses isn't "bad." It's the mark of someone who is discouraged in the face of life's tasks.

Our work is to help clients move out of the world of "Yes, but" and into the world of "Yes, and." Reading the purpose hidden behind the excuse—and encouraging clients to find the courage to tolerate their own imperfection—is, in the end, the real work of a skilled clinician.

An Action Plan for Sharper Clinical Insight

1. Track the pattern: In your progress notes, log which excuse type your client favors ("but" vs. "if only") as a distinct field over time.
2. Use session transcription tools: Record sessions (with consent) and run them through an AI transcription service—Otter.ai, Zoom's AI companion, or a security-first clinical partner like Modalia AI. Visualizing, as data, how often a client reaches for words like "but," "I had no choice," or "because of" can confront the pattern more powerfully than a hundred interpretations—and accurate text often surfaces the subtle avoidance moves we miss in real time.
3. Bring it to supervision: If a client's excuses leave you emotionally activated or helpless, treat that as countertransference material and take it to supervision.