I made a list a couple of years ago because he asked me to. I think he was frustrated I wasn't making more progress and wanted to know what I was thinking.

I am not really sure what my goals are right now. Simple things like stop cutting and burning, deal with eating disorder, learn better coping skills. Ok, they sound simple, but I guess actually dealing with those things is really hard.

Do you have goals for therapy? Do you want to feel better, think better, act better?

I apologize if this question is dumb.

[Onward2wards]

That's not a dumb question, it's an essential one.

My goals are to stop listening to the self-doubts and negative assumptions/fears that keep the best of myself locked away inside where it can't do me or anyone else much good!

[lostmyway21]

Funny you ask. My T is very goal oriented. Every session he reestablishes the weekly, and then long term goals. Today he actually decided it was time for a rehaul of our goals. They are an important part of my therapy, because without constant goals, I would get no where. Big or small, they get me through the week.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm just really at a point where I feel like a failure. I haven't met the goals I had set for myself two years ago and I'm not sure if I can meet them ever.

Maybe I have a fear of losing my therapist when/if I do meet those elusive goals?

It's all so confusing.

[Chopin99]

Originally Posted by roseleigh7

Thanks for sharing.

I'm just really at a point where I feel like a failure. I haven't met the goals I had set for myself two years ago and I'm not sure if I can meet them ever.

Maybe I have a fear of losing my therapist when/if I do meet those elusive goals?

It's all so confusing.

Your goals sound very broad to me, Rose; can you maybe work with your T to break them down into manageable chunks?

For instance, could you set a goal such as, "I will not cut or burn for one week." or if this is unrealistic, try "I will not cut or burn for one day." Then once you reach that short-term goal, go a little longer, "I will not cut or burn for two days (weeks)."

[Perna]

Have you discussed goals with your T recently? I notice some of yours are for symptom relief, which is great but not very inspiring as they're pretty much what anyone wants? Who wants to feel bad? Hardly a goal though, to feel better; not cut, not have an eating disorder, etc.? To "cope"?

What would you be doing if those behaviors weren't there? Who would you like to be, what would you like to feel like? How do the behaviors hold you back or keep you "safe". If other people are doing things like you'd like to be doing, can doing them really be that unsafe that you need those behaviors? I'd be asking myself questions like that.

When I started therapy the last time, I only made one "rule" for myself: I could not curl up in the fetal position, either literally or figuratively :-) I had to keep going, no matter how painful, how scary. I likened myself to an ice breaker or mine sweeping ship and knew I had to keep the "shipping lanes" open between my therapists and me, I had to "get out" of my head and I had to make sure she was allowed "in". I totally ignored all my symptoms, knowing if I got to the root problems, they would take care of themselves, I would not need them anymore (and my main symptom that brought me to therapy in 1970, that I'd had since 1952, did in fact resolve itself!).

I had been fighting symptoms for years and not making much headway but that was because I was fighting myself; I obviously felt I needed the symptoms (or I wouldn't have developed them in the first place) so I accepted them, allowed them, made friends with them (they were obviously helping me cope with something or I wouldn't have had them) and figured out how to be grateful to them and use them to help me further (I had very good defenses so good luck attacking me, I was obviously safer than I felt; I accepted that too :-)

Yes for more balance in my emotional live and a better knowledge and awareness of who and what I am.

[Sannah]

I think that goals need concrete plans to get there. You want to stop SI then you have to start at the beginning and work the small steps to get there. The first step might be figuring out what triggers your SI. SI and eating disorders are both addictions and addictions are needed when a person can't deal with their feelings so starting with your feelings might be step one. Please keep us posted on your progress.

[njal]

I think goals are adaptive as they flow and change with time. When I started my most recent bout of therapy I was in a very dark place, my anxiety had increased to unbearable levels, and I thought my world was falling apart. My immediate goal was to stop having SI and then I thought my next goal should be dealing with my anxiety which I thought triggers my depression.

My T on the other hand pretty much decided that the depression was what we needed to tackle first. I also switched meds at the same time so its not 100% clear to me if the therapy or the med change helped more. But ultimately I did discover some of the deeper rooted causes of my depression and my anxiety improved hand in hand.

As I improved my goals changed, it wasn't about relief anymore but rather wanted to change how I thought about myself and how I can "think better". I'm very prone to learned-helplessness and self-doubt so changing the way I think is a better goal for me now in the shape I'm in.

That said, I often have specific goals for each session if something is bothering me right now. But ultimately my goals have been constantly evolving from just "feeling better" to "thinking better" since I'll never have lasting improvement until I address my negative thinking habits.

[BonnieJean]

Mine seem to need to be general: to heal so I can grow. I've made a lot of progress toward healing in the first year but I still have a ways to go. I'm learning sub-steps to that like identifying something before I can learn to accept or change it. I have other goals like learning ways to cope and find good outlets when things get tough.

[tkdgirl]

Originally Posted by roseleigh7

I made a list a couple of years ago because he asked me to. I think he was frustrated I wasn't making more progress and wanted to know what I was thinking.

I am not really sure what my goals are right now. Simple things like stop cutting and burning, deal with eating disorder, learn better coping skills. Ok, they sound simple, but I guess actually dealing with those things is really hard.

Do you have goals for therapy? Do you want to feel better, think better, act better?

I apologize if this question is dumb.

Your question is not dumb at all. I'm actually working/struggling with this right now, it's my homework for the week, to come up with therapy goals. I have till Thursday and I still don't have much on the list.

I tend to agree with the others that smaller short term goals that are specific will make it easier to gauge progress. But I also think its a good idea to have big overall goals too, to make sure all the small ones take you to the right place.

[pbutton]

T asked me in session and I shrugged. Which was a fine indicator that goal #1 had to be "Obtain the ability to indicate to other people that I need help." Still haven't managed it though.

I set some goals once, but we never did anything with them. Goal #1 to create and commit to a goal until it is completed, no matter how small.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by earthmamma

Yes for more balance in my emotional live and a better knowledge and awareness of who and what I am.

Start with the goal of noticing when, where, how the balance of your emotional life is now? One cannot fix a problem until one can see and understand the problem. If you think you want "more" balance, you have to see where the fulcrum is now before you figure out where you'd like to move it to?

Catch yourself when you do things "right", when you correct your balance. Notice when you have X problem, go off on Y tangent, correct at Z; each time you notice, you will probably notice that the Z correction happens closer to the tangent, that the tangent gets shorter and shorter (might take a zillion years but will be happening :-)

Congratulate yourself for correcting at Z; it is a correction, afterall! Instead of looking at "geez, Y tangent is horrible. . ." look at the Z correction and congratulate yourself for finding your center again. Think of yourself like one of those weighted-bottom clowns that you punch and they go over but come back up, swinging wildly back and forth for awhile before remaining centered, upright. A seesaw has a centered fulcrum but still, it goes up and down, first one way then the next! One of my most comforting proverbs is an Arabian one: "All sun makes a desert."