I wonder how much of that is tied to life experience, though. Because once the worst *has* happened to you a few times - people close to you get recurring cancer or die in car accidents, you lose your home and you don't have enough money for a deposit to move somewhere else, you get fired two days before Christmas [fire, flood, pestilence], you *know* that you are living in a universe where not only it's a possibility for the worst to happen, but it can happen to you. Again.

When clients come in with multiple problems, try to find a common theme, then tackle the theme. Similarly, try to see if there’s a single problem which is causing all the others, then tackle that.

I wonder whether it would be useful to use a technique I've been taught for teaching classical riding (where students often come with many years, if not decades, of bad habits, and can get very emotional about things, and also often are resistant to change): My teacher would always pick one major, fundamental issue - the thing that was holding the student back most - and one issue where you could make good progress in a relatively short period of time. I find that the obvious progress reinforces trust - if the method can be seen to work, the willingness to invest more time and effort to make major changes is much greater.