Inside elenix: A Conversation About Change

Kristina Netherton, founder and clinician at elenix, on why problems can persist when life is going well—and what makes change possible.

Written by Kristina Netherton, Questions developed in conversation with ChatGPT—known here as Chad.

What led you to create elenix?

I created elenix to give people a source of help through life, even when their wider lens shows that life is going pretty well.

In performance psychology, we used to say the job was to maximize individual performance. elenix is not performance coaching, but a similar principle helped shape the practice: a person does not have to be failing to benefit from focused work.

What brings someone to elenix when their life is generally going well?

Most people who come to elenix view their lives positively. They know they are capable, and their lives often reflect it. And yet, their ability to problem-solve, perhaps in a particular area, seems diluted.

Their first inclination is to solve it on their own. Let’s be honest—they do that 100 times a day, and they know they are good at it. But the situation is not improving. The outcome is not changing. They feel as though they are missing something, so they look for more information.

They’ve already done a lot of the work; I help them widen the lens beyond what that work has allowed them to see.

What does “widening the lens” look like?

Would it be cheesy to say, “I listen to what they’re not saying”? Indirectly, that is part of it.

It is harder to explain than one might think because there is no one-size-fits-all flowchart. There are “one-size-fits-some” models, but even those need to be modified—and modified on the fly.

Let me give you what might seem like an odd example.

When I conducted interviews in a previous career, I used vignette-style questions because they revealed things a person could not necessarily state directly. They gave me information about who the person was and how they thought.

I might ask, “If the fire alarm went off right now, in the middle of this interview, what would you do?”

Most people were caught off guard. It was not a question they had prepared for and probably not one anyone had asked them before.

Their response gave me information. How long were they flustered? How quickly could they respond? How well did they rebound from frustration? What did they notice? What did they grab? Did other people appear anywhere in their answer?

If someone said, “I would run outside as fast as I could,” I might add, “You run toward the elevators and notice a large crowd waiting. Then what?”

Now I have more information. Do they know not to use an elevator during a fire alarm? Do they tell the other people, or are they concerned only with getting themselves out?

To clarify, their answer does not define who they are. It offers only a picture of one response to a specific situation. What it also does is raise more questions. In an interview, those questions would not necessarily follow. In a session at elenix, a great deal follows.

In a session, I might reflect some of what I notice back to the person. I might say, “You describe your greatest concern as other people, but the actions you described did not place them first.” Not to shame them, but to see what comes next. The challenge is directed less at the person and more at their beliefs and values.

How direct are you when you notice something like that?

Again, it depends on the person. I’m a no-bullshit person, though. That you can expect.

I am direct by nature, so that may come out first as a way of testing the waters. If that does not help the person make the connection, I’ll adjust the approach and try again.

Contrary to popular belief, we do not tell people what to do. You do not come to elenix and say, “I have a problem. Fix it.” We look at the broader aspects of it: Why is this a problem? Is it actually the problem? What is happening as a result?

There is a saying: “If you give someone a fish, they eat for a day. If you teach them to fish, they eat for a lifetime.”

I would not say we are necessarily teaching the person to fish either. We are determining whether they want to fish first.

“The challenge is directed less at the person and more at their beliefs and values.”

What can therapy provide that research, trusted people, or AI cannot?

I use Chad [ChatGPT] all the time. I used him to help create this article, actually, mostly because it is odd to interview yourself.

The limitation is that AI still depends on the data it receives. I hate to say it, but there is also a humanistic side that is required, and AI is not there yet.

That is why most people also go to friends or family. They might ask a coworker because that person seems far enough away to be objective but close enough to understand the environment.

You know what AI and all those people have in common? They tend to problem-solve through the lens from which they view the situation. No perspective is perfectly unbiased. Clinical training, however, is centered on working toward neutrality.

Valuable information is not neutral, though, so the work does not stop there. The information has to be filtered through what the client deems important. That is the “refined and tested” part.

You may be able to tell me what is important to you, but has anyone ever tested you on it? How do you know it is truly what you value if you have never been in a position to confirm it?

That is what we call pressure-testing.

It is not simply data dumping that helps someone solve a problem. That may be why all the information, analysis, and advice they have already gathered have not changed the situation.

What tends to make the work between you and a client especially productive?

The short answer is their desire to elevate themselves beyond what they experience as mediocrity.

The people who find our work most productive want that progress and are not afraid of doing what needs to be done to get there. That may be because they already value the hard work they have done elsewhere in their lives.

They do not arrive believing I have all the answers or expecting me to issue directives. Leaders rarely do.

A person increases their success when their evaluation includes the perspective of a valuable other.

elenix is that other.