Why getting caught up in the content is the biggest pitfall for therapists and coaches

You’ve probably been there: you’re all set for a session, full of energy, excited to get started, and truly eager to help your client move forward. But within ten minutes, you find yourself bogged down in a vast web of details.

Stories about uncles, aunts, situations from fifteen years ago, and detailed accounts of what happened yesterday at the coffee machine. Before you know it, you’ve completely lost track of the main point.

Many coaches and therapists fall into this trap: they get completely bogged down in the content. But if you really want to achieve fast and profound results with your clients, you actually need to let go of the content as quickly as possible. The real work happens at the level of the process.

In this article, I’ll explain exactly why engaging with the content is often incredibly unwise, how our brain filters reality, and how you can unravel the strategy behind the problem by asking “how” questions and using smart observation.

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The Three Major Filters of Our Brain

To understand why this content is so insidious, we need to look at how our brains process information. Every day, we receive a massive amount of stimuli through our senses. To keep us from going completely crazy, our brains run all incoming information through three major filters:

1. Omission: We ignore the vast majority of what is happening around us and focus our attention on only a fraction of it.
2. Generalizing: We draw hasty conclusions and make rules based on isolated events. This is the foundation of our learning process, but it is also the source of many limiting beliefs.
3. Distortion: We reshape reality to fit our own belief system and what we consider important.

The Danger of the First Filter: Omission

If, as a coach or therapist, you focus on the content (that is, on exactly what happened), you immediately activate the first filter: omission.

The client tries to tell you the whole story. The more details and information that come out, the more the filter of omission distorts things, and the faster you, as the practitioner, become confused. At some point, you’re sitting there listening and thinking nothing but: “What on earth is this about? I have no idea what the core issue is anymore.”

Incidentally, some clients do this completely automatically. They sincerely believe that you need to know their entire life story before you can help them. They essentially lay a hundred thousand loose puzzle pieces on your table and say, “There you go, now you know everything. You just go ahead and put that puzzle together.”

No, thank you very much! You don’t need to know every detail of the content. It’s not at all about what exactly happened, but about how the client is experiencing it right now.

“Why” Questions vs. “How” Questions

If you want to work at the process level[1], you need to take a critical look at the questions you ask. Many coaches tend to ask “why” questions:

• "Why do you think this happened?"
• "Why did you act that way at that moment?"

“Why” questions aren’t helpful. They invite the client to spout even more content, justify even more, and omit even more information. All you get are stories and rationalizations after the fact.

Do you want to focus on the process? Then use the “how” question.

"How do you even know you have this problem?"

"How exactly do you do that—feel afraid in that moment?"

With the “how” question, you’re not asking for a logical explanation, but rather for the person’s reality strategy and inner skill. According to Robert Dilts’ well-known logical levels (based on the work of Gregory Bateson), the “how” question directly addresses strategies, skills, and capabilities. You peel back the layers of the story and look directly under the hood of the brain.

The Magic of Nonverbal Patterns (and Coincidence vs. Structure)

When you ignore the content and focus on the “how” question, you suddenly start to see and hear things that are happening at the process level. This can involve language, but nonverbal communication is just as important . Pay attention to your client’s eye movements and, especially, their hands. Hands very often unconsciously point to the location where the structure of the problem lies[2].

Imagine this: a client describes a problem while making a specific gesture with both hands at chest level.

• The first time this happens, it’s a coincidence. After all, someone might just happen to move that way by chance.
• The second time the client talks about the problem and makes the exact same gesture, you think: Hey, that’s striking.
• The third time: BOOM. Pattern!

At that point, you can set the content aside entirely and focus on the process.

The brain works associatively

You could say, for example: “Hey, what is that you’re doing with your hands all the time?”

The client will probably look at you with a puzzled expression: “What do you mean?” But at that moment, something fascinating happens. The client’s brain goes into overdrive. Because you’ve set the frame. Suddenly, something emerges in a place where, on a conscious level, there was nothing before.

After all, our brain works in an extremely associative way. There isn’t a single specific compartment in your mind where a “yellow lemon” is stored in its entirety. There’s a compartment for the color yellow and a compartment for fruit. Just imagine cutting a fresh, bright-yellow lemon in half. You take one half, hold it over your mouth, and squeeze it right onto your tongue...

Chances are you’re already producing extra saliva and your mouth is tightening up a bit—even though there isn’t a lemon in sight! That’s the power of association.

When you help the client make the connection between the unconscious hand gesture and the problem, that imaginary spot between the hands suddenly activates all the emotional content associated with that problem. And that is far more interesting and much quicker to transform than spending an hour talking about the content.

A real-life example: The “fear of flying” that wasn’t really a fear of flying

To illustrate just how misleading content can be, I’ll share a real-life example. I once had a client come into my practice who had been suffering from extreme fear of flying for years. He had even been to Stichting Valk, a fantastic organization that helps people overcome their fear of flying. But no matter what he tried, nothing helped at all.

If you were to delve into the content, you’d start talking about airplanes: how safe flying really is, what the statistics look like, how the engines work, and that turbulence is normal. Blah, blah, blah. To this man, all of that was just useless noise.

When I started asking “how” questions to figure out the process (“How do you know you’re afraid? What exactly happens?”), we arrived at the real trigger.

It wasn’t about flying at all. The man suffered from severe claustrophobia.

• “Do you find elevators annoying, too?” I asked.

"Yeah, it's awful, but an elevator ride only takes two minutes, so I'll survive."

• "And in the car?"

"As long as I’m driving myself, everything’s fine, because then I can pull over and get out."

That’s not possible on an airplane, though. When he flew to Portugal, he was confined for over three hours. It wasn’t the altitude or the flying that was the problem, but being confined and unable to leave! By focusing on the strategy (the sequence from trigger to panic), we uncovered the real core of the issue in no time. On the surface, it seemed like a fear of flying, but at the process level, it was purely the fear of being trapped.

Stay in the process: Faster results and self-protection

The process is the actual strategy for addressing the problem. There is always a specific sequence of steps:

1. Trigger
2. Internal processing (image/feeling/sound)
3. Final result (panic/blockage)

Once you identify which step is involved (does the person see an internal image, hear a voice, or immediately feel a physical sensation?), you can tailor your intervention precisely to that. Does someone see a threatening image? Then you work with the visual characteristics of that image. Does someone feel a sensation? Then you work with that sensation.

Moreover, working at the process level has another huge advantage for you as a coach or therapist: it protects me.

Over the years, I’ve heard some of the most harrowing, intense, and sometimes terrifying stories. If you get caught up in the content of all those stories and lose yourself in the emotional details, you’ll quickly lose your train of thought or be overwhelmed by emotions. By consistently focusing on the process level (how is this brain handling this problem right now?), you maintain the professional “helicopter view” needed to truly help the client work through it.

The challenge for your next session

As a therapist or coach, do you secretly find yourself spending too many hours listening to content-heavy stories? Challenge yourself this coming week. Let go of the “what” and the “why,” and focus all your attention on the “how.”

Look for patterns, listen to the structure, observe nonverbal cues, and target the inner strategy directly. You’ll find that your sessions not only become much faster and more enjoyable, but that the results for your clients are many times deeper and more lasting!

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