THERAPEUTIC OBJECTIVES

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

It is very important to clarify what the contact person wants in the outcome of counseling. Although this is often not enough, since often people want too much, they do not want to make minimal efforts on their part and take responsibility for their problem state.

The success of psychotherapy largely depends on the existence of a common goal for the client and the psychotherapist. Community is important, not following the goal that the psychologist will outline, since in this case only the client's dependence on the specialist is formed.

Being in a problem situation, a person often presents it as if the main cause of dissatisfaction is outside himself (in his husband, children, bosses, etc.), while he himself takes a passive position. When an agreement is reached on the desired result, the client acquires the ability to see his own responsibility for his condition and life situation.

One of the most important tasks of the psychologist is to help the client accept this responsibility and to take an active position of personal participation in their own therapeutic process, starting with determining the desired result.

Talking about a goal directs a person to the future. Therefore, it is important to translate the problem into a goal. For example, if a client complains about her incontinence in dealing with her mother, it is important to be clear about which reaction she would prefer over the usual one.

The task of the psychologist is to understand what the client wants and formulate the request. It is very important not only to highlight the problem, but also to determine how the client sees it, in what and how it manifests itself in life. At the same stage of work, the positive possibilities of the client are understood. This stage, which can be designated as “Problem isolation. Investigation of the situation ", is replaced by the following:" Formation of a request or goal setting ". The main function and goal of this stage is to determine the desired result: what does the client want to achieve, what does he strive for, what will happen when the problem is solved? Together, the psychologist and the client concretize the goal, assess its realism and attractiveness. Involving the client to concretize the goal encourages him to be active and move, in such a situation he loses the opportunity to be passive.

The result that is planned must meet a number of requirements.

1. Attractiveness of the target.
2. Realism of the goal.
3. A positive statement of purpose.
4. Determination of the criteria for achieving the goal.

Patience is a very important trait for the psychologist, which provides a leisurely, felt and thoughtful formulation of the client's goal. The goal cannot always be formulated in the first session. Sometimes the study of the situation takes more time, and sometimes the goal is turned out to be false or illusory. Sometimes the goal at a certain stage of counseling loses its relevance. It happens that a person is faced with something like that in himself, with the found value and meaning that the previously formulated goal ceases to be not only relevant, but, undergoing a value transformation, is placed in a different zone of values and meanings. Sometimes the longed-for goal, which initially guides the activity of a person, enters into such an incompatible struggle, revealed during therapy to his nature, that one has to sacrifice it, but at the same time preserve something more significant.

Even when the psychologist gets the impression that it is already clear what to work with, there is no need to force events, it is necessary to make sure that the client himself understands. One of the most elegant metaphors for client-centered psychotherapy is the pair dance metaphor, led by the client and accompanied by the therapist. Analyzing his classic interview with Keith K. Rogers noted that he wants to meet "the client as a person." This is such a meeting of two people, within which Kate can explore her feelings and move towards the goals that she sets herself.

In the context of therapy, goals must arise from a long and deep process. When choosing a goal at the outset, there is a high probability that this goal will be determined based on the current attitudes, which are likely to change during therapy. The client himself must choose the direction of the desired changes, but the choice becomes not so much the goal of change as a manifestation of the aspect of the personality that most of all needs change.

Therefore, while the client does need to define goals, it should be done as a result of a deeper process.

There are usually several steps in defining a therapeutic goal:

1. Revealing the desired result. It is important to identify not only the expected change in the outcome of counseling, but also the signs of this change.

2. Determination of the meaning and meaning of the desired in the light of possible gains and inevitable losses that the result will bring, awareness of the change in life in connection with a change in any one of its aspects (the dependence of the whole on the change in the part).

3. Examination of the timeliness of the therapeutic goal - when the client is convinced of the relevance of the chosen therapeutic goal, there is an increase in motivation to achieve it.

Of course, there are a number of situations when difficulties arise in determining the therapeutic goal, it is very difficult for some clients to articulate what they want, the problem of others is that they do not understand what they want in general, for others it is very difficult to verbalize their desire, since it is looks intimidating. Difficulties in setting the definition of a therapeutic goal arise if the complaint is extremely generalized or is manipulative in nature, it is also difficult to define tasks with those who came at someone's insistence (sent by a wife, husband, parents).

For all the importance of setting a therapeutic goal, one should not get too carried away with it and chase it without noticing anything else. Because the nuances of individual therapeutic cases and their participants can very soon turn all formulations into a ghost, when very quickly the most satisfying formulation loses "flesh and blood" next to the mystery of what human nature is.

And it’s a pity when “every dream, my happiness, as soon as you wake up in it, is, in fact, a rotten devil's trap” (V. Polozkova). And, of course, one should not direct a person crying from the loss of a loved one towards “formulating a goal”. Sometimes people do not expect us to lead them to brilliant success and unthinkable happiness, but hope that they will be heard and will take the most active part in their mental pain.

I also doubt the focus on the goal and its precise articulation of those clients who, even without us, are overly concerned about the end result and focus on the goal. For a neurotic who is concerned that everything and always must obey the goal and the result, the best goal is the absence of any goals.