My first T never asked me for goals. I was depressed and had just moved to a new state though so I guess my "goals" would have been obvious; not to feel depressed and to feel like I had adjusted to the change.

My second T was short term so we focused on some childhood trauma and did EMDR. She asked me what I wanted to get out of therapy with her and that's what I settled on.

Current T asked me my goals and we actually talked about them the first session or two. One was to work through some family stuff regarding my childhood trauma. The other was to not feel depressed/anxious anymore, or at least be able to manage it better. And I think my last one was to develop deeper relationships with people since I have trouble opening up sometimes.

With my first T, I loved that she didn't ask me about my goals but again, it may have been because they were kind of obvious due to the reasons I was going to therapy. However, even though I was hesitant doing goals with my current T, she seems to put more thought into what we should work on during sessions in order to help me reach my goals. If something random comes up or I want to discuss something in particular, she always lets me do that but on the days where I don't have much to talk about, she takes the lead and we have a direction. I feel like she is actually doing work to prepare for my sessions instead of expecting me to choose the topic every week. Progress is being made, albeit slow, but it's happening with this T.