Do you have therapy goals?

Do you have goals for therapy? Are they the same goals that you came in with? How much input did your therapist have into your goals?

I brought 3 goals to therapy intially:

1. To deal with anxiety around a work trip. Therapist made things worse. I survived the trip, despite therapy. This is off the table now that the trip is done, furthering my believe that alot of crap takes care of itself with enough time.

2. To learn how to deal with my mother. This seems like it should be an easy one. I have a feeling T will say it boils down to, "tell her no, and don't back down." *shrug* Not sure I actually need a T for this?

3. To figure out what I want to do with my life. Not sure T can help with this either. I suspect the problem is bigger though. I think "career coaching" stuff can't work until I fixed the underlying brokenness, but I can't see that part clearly enough to create goals around it. Maybe first goal should be to identify the broken pieces?

Meh.

My goals have totally changed. I came to therapy for help coping with my husband's complex grief and to feel more emotionally self sufficient.

In many ways it has been successful for that, but it has uncovered my PTSD, anxiety disorder, childhood trauma etc etc.
I'm not sorry thsee things have been raised because I am the kind of person that wants to know and wants to address it all but it's given me so much more work to do.
Now I think I would settle for getting rid of the consuming transference that has developed and hurts like hell

Hi Echos...

Thanks... but I'm still unsure what to do with that. So I have childhood trauma too. I don't know how to work that into a goal though? Something like "heal childhood trauma" doesn't feel tangible to me, I'm not sure what the end state actually looks like?

I guess I feel that there are plenty of broken things like that, but I'm not sure how to make them into goals.

I'm also pretty quickly spinning back into the "therapy sucks!" camp! (And therapy is too expensive, not a good return-on-investment so far!)

Maybe I'm just feeling whiny today.

*thanks*

The woman proved useless for the reasons I went to see her in the first place, but I have found a way to make it useful in a different way. I would not say I have goals as such.

I guess for me I'm just thinking 'process childhood trauma' and 'own childhood trauma' (rather than it owning me). I don't really know what it looks like either.
I am trying out a new T next week to get some perspective on whether I am heading in the right direction and whether my transference issues are causing me to become stuck.
I really don't know where I want it to go, or what it looks like to own the trauma. I guess in that way I'm trying not to be totally goal oriented anymore and just experiencing growth and movement as it comes

No. At least not in a way that's attained and then done.

I go to therapy to help me cope with my depression. That's it. Sometimes I vent. Sometimes I get feedback if I'm filtering something through my depression goggles. Sometimes I just shoot the breeze and complain that life sucks.

That's all I want from it. My depression is horrendous and also can't be cured by talk therapy.

Previous T was big on pushing goals. Another thing we didn't agree on... Goals are for life, not therapy. Therapy is for providing the support/encouragement/'holding'/whatever that I am somehow unable to provide for myself in my life. If there is any goal it is to be able to do these things for myself in my own life, or to have the kind of relationships that allow me to do them. Or something... I'll figure it out. But therapy goals as such. No.

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To process childhood trauma.

To use my T as a consistent and reliable source of support.

To be happy.

That's a good question - my therapy has already taken on a life of it's own, but the idea was to the use the lull provided by a course of National Health Service antidepressants to end a cycle of anxiety, depression and destructive behaviour by whatever means my T in her experience advises. I expect we will circle back to this in time...

My goals:

1. Healing. Living life not knowing about my ASD until adulthood and being misdiagnosed has profoundly hurt me.

2. Communication. Working on my social skills and vocalizing my feelings has improved how I relate to others.

3. Finding inner peace and being okay with myself.

Sure I've always got goals. Main on is to break the cycle of abuse in my family, to not turn into my mom. To love myself and be able to show love to others.

to process past traumas (ive been trying to avoid most of that for 4 yrs now with him )

to be healthy in mind and body

to be successful at school

to get support

to figure out a way to manage paranoia and voices (getting better at this)

I have goals, sure. I had to list my therapy goals on of the forms my T made me fill out at the start. And my Pdoc wrote up some treatment goals for me (but that was more so I could have something from her).

But I prefer not to try to achieve goals. Sounds messed up. I prefer to just taking baby steps forward and practicing coping skills. I still wind up meeting my goals that way. I don't know. I think sometimes achieving a set goal might not be realistic.

Like a goal would be (since you mentioned trauma) to cope with childhood trauma. But it's so vague. How do I even begin to do that? What does the completion of that goal even look like for me? So instead, when those traumas start affecting me, I talk about it in therapy and use coping skills outside of therapy. When they don't affect me, I don't work on it. And over time, I assume I'll meet the goal in my own way.

But I also do this in different ways too. Many people who have addictions count the days they've been sober. I don't. It adds too much pressure. My addictions I'm working on is smoking and SI. I don't know how long it's been since I've SI'ed. I'm sure I could figure it out, but I don't want to. It gives it too much importance. Instead, anytime the desire comes up, I work on coping with it.

But, for the sake of this thread, my goals (in therapy and life) are: to socialize, gain confidence, be more independent, go back to school/get a part time job, go to group therapy (more my doctors goals for me), become a mother, make a friend, not SI, control my skin picking, quit smoking, and work on physical health. My daily goal: use coping skills and keep myself safe.

You can have overall/end goals, but I just find that the smaller goals are much more realistic and less overwhelming to achieve.

My goal this time around was to have help getting stabilized after a hospital stay. And I think we have managed it and are spacing out the visits now. I still don't feel safe enough to do without the safety net of having someone to bounce things off of.

Hmm. I am deep in thought over all these responses. Thanks. I like the idea of not worrying about goals. But, I worry that my T is so expensive, I can't do this forever. If I don't have goals, I'm afraid I'll just sort of drift in therapy for ever, end up broke, and not be better off in the end. I am sort of feeling like this whole therapy endeavor was a mistake. It's not making my life any better, and it's draining my bank account... which adds stress... which makes life worse. Sorry, I'm just in a strangely bad place. Too much sugar today ("cheat day") really probably not helping myself!

I had one goal going in, but now it's taken a back seat to the goal of getting over bad therapy of the past. I thought I had done that on my own, but as things progress with a new and (finally) competent therapist, the old stuff is in the way. I do feel that I will see tangible evidence that I'm reaching my original goal, though. This therapist does long term therapy, but she does not let grass grow under my feet, which is good because she's not cheap.

I had no goals going in. I still have no goals. I really, really hate goals, and that might be because they put pressure on me and I crash fast and hard when I'm put under pressure (personal or otherwise). I get really seriously bored and I'm bad at them when they're set in place. I go in, talk about something that may or may not ever be resolved, and I do what I can day-to-day to cope with it. Might have sort of repressed damage from goalies.

Edit to say: I might be representing myself here, I mean I have no goals for therapy or mental health. I do "work towards" things I want irl, like saving up money for something I want that's expensive or weight loss or whatever. Those are goals I can manage.

T's goal for me-Keep me in the least restrictive atmosphere possible.

My T and I have never discussed goals. I first went to get help dealing with my moms sickness and then death. Out of the transference I learned how many childhood needs I had that were never fulfilled. Just last session 7 months later my T told my husband one thing we are working on is not repeating my mom's cycle of parenting. I had never realized that nor thought I had somethkng not worth repeating. Well, I knew I don't want to be like my mom but it was the first time I heard my T say something like that. In the same session she pointed out unhealthy thought patterns I have. I don't think we've had to discuss my goals because all along we have found what I need working on.

I'm glad other people mention goals changing over time or scope of T expanding. I started by trying to cope with a death in family and work stress but of course grief/anger have antecedents going back years. Lots to explore psychoanalytically. Yuck.

I also worry about winding up in T forever. She'd like that. I pay full fee.

Be wary of Ts who are growing their business, funding an advertising campaign, or find you an interesting "case." Sorry to sound cynical but therapists can countertransfer and need you in ways that get strange.

My goal is to have a safe place to go and to have someone in my life who is in my corner, so that I can be a better friend and family member to others.

This isn't a goal that will be achieved because the goal itself (or rather, purpose) is ongoing. I really think that's all it is for me at this point.