Hello, Chronic lateness can be seen as a sort of personality trait sometimes. Some people bind time much more stringently than others, who have a more diffuse time binding style. Some cultures accept lateness more readily than do others. Edward Hall discussed time binding in his books "The Silent Language" and "The Hidden Diemnsion." So there may not be an underlying pathological problem here. (But there may be, how could someone who has not seen you in person say?) However, you raise a very serious issue: chronic tardiness is highly unprofessional. As a new professional, one importtant task of your training is to develop a more professional manner, both as seen by your clients and by your colleagues. You can get away with chronic tardiness when you are in training and seeing only three clients per week. What about when you have six appointments in one day? If you are late to the first one, all the rest are thrown off by the same amount of time. I have personally experienced this with a therapist I was seeing; he would have several consecutive appointments, and all would be fifteen or twenty minutes off the hour. I didn't complain, but I didn't like it either. So you cannot go by whether clients volunteer that they don't like your lateness. They may tolerate it, but they will not consider you highly professional either. The question is: Do you want to get by, or do you want to achieve excellence? Habits set in training when adherence to rules is more lax can be difficult to break later. Perhaps it is a matter of setting up some effective structures in your life so that you will get to places on time. Even if there are some underlying issues the intervention of choice may be purely behavioral. You can set up your own behavioral modification program (if you need some guidelines, look up some information on self-management, such as the book "Toward a Self-Managed Lifestyle" published in the 1980s.) This uses a series of goal-setting and self-administered reinforcement. If a self-management system doesn't resolve the problem, then consider seeking counseling., if it seems appropriate. Kind regards, Don H. Morris, Ed.D.
Licensed Professional Counselor
Little Rock, Arkansas
Replies:
|
| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |
Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.