**🔼 Up:** [[Change Without Force]] **⏺️ With:** [[Change Agenda]], [[Letting Be]] **\#️⃣ Tags:** #Being #Wisdom > **🌱 Planted:** Sat 21 June 2025 --- > [!quote] > “Change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not.” ― Arnold Beisser This is the crux of the Paradoxical Theory of Change[^1], which comes from [[Gestalt Therapy]]. People don’t want to be told what’s wrong with them or how to fix themselves. What they long for is to be met with genuine [[Presence]]. To be seen, heard, valued, and loved without any [[Change Agenda|agenda to change them]]. In other words, they want to feel like it's okay to just be themselves as they are. When this is allowed to happen, paradoxically, change spontaneously occurs. The Paradoxical Theory of Change reveals a counterintuitive truth about human transformation, which is that force and self-rejection creates resistance instead of the expected transformation, while also pointing to the basic nature of living systems. That is, [[Publish/Expand/Change Without Force|living systems do not like or want to be changed, and they naturally resist it!]] People usually come to therapists and coaches because they want to change or improve themselves in some way. So they already come in with a [[Change Agenda]] against themselves. This establishes what Frederick Perls (founder of Gestalt) calls the "topdog/underdog" dichotomy, where the therapist assumes the role of the expert whilst the client assumes the role of the helpless person. The topdog/under-dog dichotomy usually already exists within us already (as different [[Parts]]), so if the therapist or coach feeds into the change agenda, it only serves to reinforce the belief that there's something wrong with their client. Instead, we need to be avoiding this trap by encouraging the client to accept both of those Parts, one at a time, as their own. In [[Aletheia Coaching]], we honour this through the principle of [[Letting Be]]. # See Also - [[Change Agenda]] - [[Wu-Wei (無為)]] [^1]: [Paradoxical Theory of Change](https://gestalt.org/arnie.htm)