[skysblue]

Just wondering people's thoughts about their goals in therapy...

Originally Posted by skysblue

Just wondering people's thoughts about their goals in therapy...

For me happiness is indeed one goal aswell as new safe boundaries around myself and self confidence and self acceptance leading to higher self esteem. What are your goals skysblue???

[critterlady]

Honestly, I'm not aiming for happiness, because I really don't know what it would take for me to be happy.

My main goal is to understand how my past influences the choices I make and be able to use that information to make better choices for the future.

My other goal is to be able to think positively about myself and be able to see that I am worthy of good choices.

Happiness has never really been a therapy goal for me. If it comes as a natural progression of my goals, that will be great, but I don't really see "happiness" as concrete enough to "work" towards.

My goals I guess are more concrete:

1. Be able to manage my bipolar symptoms/episodes when they occur (seem to have this one about as much reached as I can at this point.)
2. Reach a place of relative stability (also seem to be there pretty much).
3. Lead my life for the here and now instead of living and dwelling in the past. (also pretty much there.)

Right now I'm a bit without therapy goals I think. I've reached a place where I seem to be able to manage things without really needing much therapy support and will probably be discontinuing therapy except on an as needed basis pretty soon.

Am I happy? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I AM pretty content though which I guess is a good place to be. Certainly much more than I've had in the past.

To be my own friend.

[Luce]

What is happiness, and how do you know if you have achieved it? And, once achieved, doesn't happiness just get lost again and again as one goes through the emotional ups and downs of every day life?

What does 'happiness' look like?

[WikidPissah]

The goals I officially have are:
1) to communicate better verbally
2) to let my family (h, kids) help me (reached)
3) to gain impulse control (also reached)
4) manage PTSD symptoms (almost there)
5) Find another field to work in

My real goals:
1) manage anxiety/control my speech
2) get back to working in my field

[Perna]

Self knowledge and acceptance (self esteem).

[unaluna]

A healthy mind in a healthy body in a healthy home and having healthy r/s. And probably in that order, huh. Thanks for helping me organize that!

Understanding and self acceptance.

[sconnie892]

When I started therapy, the goals t and I set were to reduce anxiety, increase self-esteem, and work on relationship issues. Parts of that have been accomplished. Other parts are slowly progressing.

For me, happiness is an emotion that cannot be sustained nor should it be. There is a time for happiness and sorrow. Last session, t said her wish for me was to find joy in my life. I think that is one of the best goals I could have. I believe joy can be found in all situations. For me, joy is a centered state of being. A good deal of this comes from my religious beliefs. Part of therapy for me is learning to see the joy in life.

[autotelica]

My number one goal when I started therapy was to feel like a normal human being. I thought this alone would equate to happiness.

Strangely, I do feel happier, but I am and feel even more abnormal than I was before I started therapy.

My therapist's number one goal for me was to make at least two friends. I don't know why she came up with two, other than she didn't know just how difficult a patient I was when I first started seeing her. When she told me this was her goal for me, I kind of shrugged. I'd never really wanted a friend before, so if it didn't happen, it wasn't a big deal to me.

Four-and-a-half years later, I am still do not have a friend. Strangely, my therapist doesn't seem worried about this. She has told me that she's fine being my therapeutic friend indefinitely. But now, I seem to care more about my isolation. Being in therapy has taught me the importance of human relationships. If I thought my therapist was going to be in practice forever, then maybe I wouldn't care. But she's in her mid-70s. One day, very soon no doubt, she's going to have to break the news to me.

In some ways, I feel like I'm a million miles away from the wretched creature I used to be. But in reality, I haven't traveled very far. I still think therapy has helped me a lot, though.

I think my goal in T is to get to a place where I feel like there IS a place for me, I am not a waste of space, I dont have to apologize for my existence, what I say (no matter what it is) matters and i am not wasting anyone's time or am ridiculous, I can trust myself, and I feel confident and good in my own skin. Bottom line: being "me" is ok

[stopdog]

For me happiness in not the goal. I do not think I am unhappy. I am in therapy to quit feeling bad at times when I know there is no reason to feel bad or anxious.

[Broom Hilda]

I have no goals. I've given up. I'm an empty shell and all hope is gone. I stay in therapy because I'm addicted to paid friend.

[pbutton]

It's not one of my goals, but it has been a very pleasant side effect. Before I wasn't paying attention to any of my emotions. Getting in touch with the positive emotions has been kind of fun.

[taylor43]

my main goal is for me to stop living in the past and live for today!

[skysblue]

Any thoughts about the suggestions listed here?

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/dbt/20...ay-activities/

[SoupDragon]

My first goal on going to see T was to just to be able to contemplate living. Then I thought I was looking for happiness, but now realise for me that is unrealistic - my life just isn't like that.

Now I think it is more to be able to experience my emotions (was numb for so long) and to be able to sit with all of them, whether they are postive or negative and also to learn to be content with things just as they are right now.

[mcl6136]

I went to my (bombed) therapy with my cold distant T with a few goals that I did not reach...they were more about self-understanding in the context of a very difficult job situation and the time coincided with the death of someone close.

I did not reach those goals because of the awful r/s with my T. Which set me back. Now, I am ready to return to the goals, though I have worked through the grief process....thanks for helping me re-set those goals. They are not about happiness per se, more of "self understanding," which I think the happiness will flow from there.

[learning1]

I usually think of the phrase self fulfillment more than happiness, though who knows what any of those words really mean. Seems rather out of fashion to discuss happiness as a goal. To me, happiness connotes a shallower kind of thing, like something that could be met by pleasures of the moment (a nice piece of chocolate cake, a shopping spree, a mindless, tipsy gathering). That's just the first thing that comes to my mind, not the only things I think people mean by the word happiness.

To me, self fulfillment connotes stuff like being able to acknowledge and live with the realities of the pain in the world (half the population that lives on less than $2/day, child abuse, war, injustice, etc.) and yet still keep a sense of meaning, purpose, and, at times, pleasure and happiness. I don't really think it's possible to entirely honestly face those realities all the time, but I guess a goal is being able to acknowledge them more and more honestly. By "acknowledging" them honestly, I mean probably feeling motivated and capable enough to do something about them...

[skysblue]

Happiness seems to be a term that each of us gives a different meaning or a different significance. Some of the commentators believe they're happy even though they suffer from anxiety or fear. Some believe happiness is just the experience of feeling pleasure. Some think happiness is not realistic because we'll always have ups and downs in our lives.

Many listed self-confidence, self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-worth, self-fulfillment, self-knowledge, self-friendship as goals in therapy. And some of you stated that when you achieve those, you expect or you've experienced a feeling of happiness as a consequence.

A contrast was made between happiness and joy - that happiness is shortlived but that joy could be permanent. That joy might be the living in the moment.

Some listed specific concrete goals such as managing symptoms or working towards career goals or finding health in all aspects of life (physical, mental, emotional).

I'm wondering though if we all don't have the same goal - we want to feel better. We could call that feeling 'happiness' or 'joy' or 'contentment' or 'peace', but wouldn't that be a common mission for all of us?

Sure, we will face tough stuff our whole lives. Is the key to 'happiness' that we're able to be knocked down occasionally but that we have gained the tools to bring ourselves upright again?

Can a stable sense of well-being, whether we call it 'happiness', 'joy', 'contentment' or any other word be our authentic goal?

I don't know. I'm groping here so if any of you want to help me out, I'd appreciate it. It's that I thought I had gained a certain amount of 'understanding' and had acquired a certain amount of 'tools', but still I seem to flounder occasionally and find myself once again plummeting into the darkness. I think my T will be disappointed that although it seems like I had succeeded overcoming certain emotional obstacles, now I'm facing them again.

[learning1]

Originally Posted by skysblue

Happiness seems to be a term that each of us gives a different meaning or a different significance. Some of the commentators believe they're happy even though they suffer from anxiety or fear. Some believe happiness is just the experience of feeling pleasure. Some think happiness is not realistic because we'll always have ups and downs in our lives.

Many listed self-confidence, self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-worth, self-fulfillment, self-knowledge, self-friendship as goals in therapy. And some of you stated that when you achieve those, you expect or you've experienced a feeling of happiness as a consequence.

A contrast was made between happiness and joy - that happiness is shortlived but that joy could be permanent. That joy might be the living in the moment.

Some listed specific concrete goals such as managing symptoms or working towards career goals or finding health in all aspects of life (physical, mental, emotional).

I'm wondering though if we all don't have the same goal - we want to feel better. We could call that feeling 'happiness' or 'joy' or 'contentment' or 'peace', but wouldn't that be a common mission for all of us?

Sure, we will face tough stuff our whole lives. Is the key to 'happiness' that we're able to be knocked down occasionally but that we have gained the tools to bring ourselves upright again?

Can a stable sense of well-being, whether we call it 'happiness', 'joy', 'contentment' or any other word be our authentic goal?

I don't know. I'm groping here so if any of you want to help me out, I'd appreciate it. It's that I thought I had gained a certain amount of 'understanding' and had acquired a certain amount of 'tools', but still I seem to flounder occasionally and find myself once again plummeting into the darkness. I think my T will be disappointed that although it seems like I had succeeded overcoming certain emotional obstacles, now I'm facing them again.

So are you thinking maybe your goals were too lofty, and you had reached them for a bit and then realized they couldn't last? I've done that I guess. I don't think your t will be disappointed. Now I'm thinking a baseline of contentment seems like a reasonable goal. "Stable sense of well being" sounds like a good way to put it too.

[KazzaX]

I've been told that happiness is not a good goal to have in therapy because in life there are ups and downs and you are not always going to be happy.

So I changed my goal to something more realistic. 1. To be able to function and 2. any reduction in symptoms of the severe depression would be nice. But 1 is the main one.

[missbelle]

peace of mind
contentment
acceptance

happiness is relative