So I had Session today and my T brought up the concept of harm reduction when making decisions.

T was discussing how decisions aren't right or wrong but rather should be viewed as whether they are harm reducing. This is a totally new concept for me.

So the example we worked through is I'm taking a work transfer across the country come September mainly to put some physical distance between me and my parents (the main reason I'm in therapy to begin with). Originally the idea was to take a 6month transfer and then assess whether I wanted to stay. Of course my dad was extremely unsupportive and against the move but finally after a few months has realized I'm going with or without his approval and has somewhat accepted this. Now my work has changed it to a minimum 1 year transfer. So I was trying to strategize how I was going to break this new news to my parents when T suggested that I don't even tell them. Of course this never occurred to me that I had this option. So I started analyzing whether this was the "right" thing to do, when my T brought up the harm reduction concept. In this case T asked me to consider what harm would be cause to me if I told them (yelling, disapproval, criticism) compared to the harm of not telling them, they already know I am going and there was a chance I would stay beyond 6 months. This viewed put a totally different perspective on the decision for me.

I'm not sure the purpose of me posting this other than I found this concept so mind blowing. Making decisions this way versus looking at some subjective judgement of what's right or wrong is creating some interesting insights.