Negotiating engagement
• Support the person’s agency to participate in negotiation
• Develop language for the in-between

For engagement to be usefully negotiated as a joint enterprise, both parties need to have agency. Careful listening for agency, knowledge and resource to inform inquiry and gathering threads is needed to support the person’s agency. This is further developed in the discussion of supporting the person with respect to limits to disclosure. Moving out of binary and developing a language for the ‘in-between’, limited or potential or partial engagement, rather than engagement or not, can be particularly helpful. Eliciting a small amount of interest can be more achievable than eliciting a commitment. For instance:

“Is there a little bit of interest in what I am talking about? … Sounds like a reluctant interest, do you have some openness to following through with the conversation and seeing if it seems useful?”

Trust can also be more usefully negotiated on a range of continua, rather than an all or nothing phenomenon:

“I don’t know” can support an inquiry as to whether the person holds some openness of mind. Inquiry as to what persuaded the person to turn up given that they thought it was a waste of time may open a conversation of possibilities, even if it is around coercion from someone else in their life:

“Given that you came because your wife nagged you, does that mean you value harmony in your household?”

Concerns about judgment and shame are common, once elicited they can be addressed. Helpful inquiries might include: