“Everybody lies.”
Gregory House was only half wrong.
It’s not that patients are lying when they come to see you.
What’s happening is that your patients are asking you to play their version of hide and seek.
You know, the game we all played when we were kids.
Your job is to understand that, figure out the rules and play the game to win the right to help them.
And just because you think you know where they’re hiding, and just because your Handlers want you to wrap things up in 12 minutes or less…doesn’t mean that you get to just pull them out of their hiding place.
It’s called hide and seek, not hide and find.
The process of seeking is what helps you earn the right to transform your patients lives…instead of just addressing their presenting complaints.