Where Ya Headed?

A counselor doesn’t have to live with the consequences of his client’s choices. Therefore, a client is the only one with the right to make decisions regarding their life. For example, if a person chooses to stay or leave a spouse, it is the client that will be living with the aftermath of that choice. They will be paying the lawyer fees. They will be managing effected relationships. They need to decide if the results of their choices are something that they want to accept.

A counselor does their client a service, when he helps them identify positive and negative consequences of their choices. Often these consequences are jumbled together in the person’s mind and its helpful for them to be able to speak them out loud and talk through them. Helping the client talk about the pros and cons of decisions can also be a healthy exercise.

Many times, the client does not know what direction they want to go. They are not sure, what their final destination is going to look like. A very large part of therapy is helping the client describe the destination that they are trying to arrive at.

It is very helpful when the client takes time to describe that destination using as many descriptives as possible. As the client describes their final destination to the counselor, it helps them to formulate it in their own mind. Once they can fully see and visual their final destination, it makes it easier for them to formulate a plan about how to get there. Its hard to go somewhere, if you don’t fully understand where you are going.

Helpful questions may be, “How will you know when you are done with counseling?” “What will it feel like when you have reached your end goal?” “What does your end goal look like?” “What type of person will you be, when you have reached your destination?” “How will you respond differently to your situation?” “How will others react to you?” “How will your destination be different from where you currently are?” “What type of person do you want to become?” “What would you like to accomplish?”

Oftentimes a person has been the person that they are trying to become, for a brief period in their life. Information about that period can be very helpful to the counselor and the client. The more details that the client can offer regarding how they experienced themselves during that time, the more the client can understand how to duplicate it.

Important facts to ascertain about that time period may be how they acted, why they believe that period existed, factors that made up that period in their life, ways that they approached the world, habits they had formed, and the lenses through which they viewed things. Things that the client had control over, can be duplicated, if the client finds it helpful to do so.

Julia sat across from the counselor. She was very confused about what to do. She had been feeling awful inside for what felt like several years. She felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and depressed. She really wanted to get rid of the feeling.

The counselor had already spent time asking questions about Julia’s situation. Julia had already expressed confidence that the counselor understood where she was coming from. The counselor had a clear understanding of where Julia was starting from, but he did not yet know where she wanted to arrive.

Julia didn’t know exactly where she wanted to arrive at either. She knew that she didn’t want to be in the place she was in, but she did not know where she was going. All she knew was that she felt bad, and she didn’t want to feel bad anymore.

The counselor wanted to help Julia end up in the place that she wanted to be in, not the place that he wanted her to be in. He trusted Julia that she knew what type of life she wanted to have. He also knew that people grow at their own pace. Julia would know what steps she would be ready to take, and how big of a jump forward she would be ready to make.

The counselor asked Julia, “what is it that you would like to accomplish?”

“Well,” replied Julia, “I’d like to not feel depressed anymore.”

“How will you know when you are not depressed anymore?” asked the counselor. “How will you be feeling differently? What will you be thinking differently about your life? What actions will you be doing differently?”

“Well, Julia said, after some contemplation, “I won’t feel so overwhelmed anymore”

“You won’t feel overwhelmed anymore about what?”

“I won’t feel like I’m a bad mom, because the kids are always fighting, the house is never as clean as I would like it, we don’t go to church like I want to, and I’m always getting mad,” replied Julia.

“Okay, let me clarify,” replied the counselor, “you will not feel depressed anymore, when your kids are not fighting, you feel good about the state your house is in, your attending church, and you’re no longer getting upset?”

“Yes,” replied Julia, “that sums it up.”

“Alright, so there are basically four goals that you would like to achieve right now. You would like your kids to stop fighting. You would like to feel good about your ability to keep up with chores at home, you would like to attend church, and you would like to be a calmer person. Is that correct?”

 “Yes, that sounds about right.”

“Okay,” said the counselor, “which goal would you like to work on first?”

  “I would first like to keep up with my chores at home.”

If the counselor in this example, had simply doled out a common intervention for depression, before defining the client’s end goal a little deeper, he could have, quite possibly, missed the mark. When the counselor dug a little deeper, he discovered that there were actually four areas in Julia’s life that she wanted to work on. Notice the counselor did not attempt to work on all of the areas at once. For some people, that would have been overwhelming. Instead, he asked Julia which goal she would like to work towards first.

“Okay,” asked the counselor, “what does it look like when you feel good about what you have done with the chores at home.

“Well,” responded Julia, “I know I can’t have everything perfectly clean, so maybe if I get the basics done, then I can allow myself to be happy with what I’ve accomplished.”

“Sounds good to me. What are those basics?”

“Well,” replied Julia, “I think I can be happy if I have the laundry done, the dishes loaded in the dishwasher, and the living room floor picked up.”

“Sounds like a plan. Is there is a time in your life, in the past, when you were able to accomplish that goal?” asked the counselor.

“Hmmm, yes there was,” replied Julia. A couple of years ago I had a schedule that I was following. It really helped. I was able to get all of those things accomplished. Then, I had a couple of tragedies happen in my life, and my schedule fell apart.”

By asking about times when the client was able to accomplish the goal, the counselor gained insight into an intervention that has worked in the past. Oftentimes, there isn’t a reason to reinvent the wheel. When something has worked in the past, it is likely work again. Julia can now decide if she wants to work on developing a new schedule for her life, since the old one worked so well.