So in the end, it makes sense to take clients as far as they want to go (and can afford to go) toward transformation, as long as we separate our hopes for our clients from their goals for themselves, and as long as we understand that we’re just one of many wisdom traditions (from religion to philosophy) that have their own beliefs about what human flourishing looks like, and as long as we’re willing to acknowledge and work on the blind spots in our tradition, including the tendency to explain human problems at the micro level and ignore larger social forces. As Winston Churchill liked to say, “We all suffer from the defects of our virtues.”

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This blog is excerpted from "Therapy and Transformation," by William Doherty. The full version is available in the January/February 2018 issue, Not Your Grandfather's Therapy: Meeting the Needs of Today's Clients.