Overcoming Resistance – An Advanced Applied Neuroscience Perspective for Experienced Coaches

Resistance is often understood as a client’s reluctance to change, lack of motivation, avoidance, or failure to follow through. From an Advanced Applied Neuroscience (AAN) perspective, however, resistance is something more specific: an ineffective response pattern to emotional discomfort. This workshop introduces experienced coaches to a neuroscience-based framework for understanding why clients get stuck, especially when insight, motivation, and desire for change are already present.

Participants will explore the difference between immediate threat responses associated with the amygdala and uncertainty-related threat responses associated with the BNST. They will learn why many forms of resistance are not simply cognitive blocks or motivational issues, but learned patterns shaped by past experience, meaning-making, and the client’s relationship with unpleasant emotions.