» Life Topics » Family & Relationships
An Introduction to Goal-Directed Therapy: Therapy With An End In Sight
By: Thelma Golub, MFT
You can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results...
The Role of the Effective Therapist:
Let's say your kitchen sink is leaking. You open the cabinet door and there's the leak. Just a few little drops, but if you don't do something fast, pretty soon those little drops will flood the kitchen floor, then run out onto the living room carpet, and eventually ruin everything.
Okay. You've identified the problem. Now you have to make a choice. Will you take action, or will you let the problem persist?
Of course, you can choose to ignore the leak. But that's not really a viable option. Leaks, however small, rarely stop by themselves. In fact, as you know, they usually get worse.
You can try to repair it yourself. But unless you know what you're doing, and unless you have the right tools, you run the risk of doing more harm than good.
You can take the band-aid approach and maybe wrap some tape around the leak. But sooner or later, either the tape will burst, or the leak will show up somewhere else.
Or, you can honestly admit that you have no earthly idea how to fix the leak, and that you need the help of someone trained specifically to fix problems like this. You can pick up the phone, call a plumber, and take care of the situation right away, before it gets any worse.
You've identified the problem. Now you have to make a choice. Will you take action, or will you let the problem persist?
The issues in our everyday lives are a lot like this leaky pipe. Often, we can identify the problem and even its potentially damaging results. But sometimes, we find ourselves paralyzed by the choices we might make, and helpless to take the right action.
We can hope that the problem will go away by itself. But overwhelmingly we find that, left unattended, our problems just get worse, flooding into other areas of our lives and eventually ruining many fine things.
Too, we find that when we try to fix things without full knowledge of how to do the best possible job, without knowing the "tricks of the trade," and without the most appropriate "tools," often we unintentionally make things even worse than they are.
Sometimes, we try the band-aid approach to our problems. We do the best that we can with what we have available. But after a while, the problem inevitably shows up somewhere else. The real problem hasn't been addressed, and we're no better off than before.
If we are truly responsible, wise, and mature, we take our "leak" to a professional — a professional who can accurately diagnose the situation, who has the know-how and the right tools to fix it, and who can do the job we really want done.
That's the role of a good therapist. To help you figure out what's wrong, and to help you fix it. Fast. Before the "leak" gets worse.
The Role of Goal-Directed Therapy:
Let's go back to our kitchen leak again. Let's say you've decided to call a professional; in this case, a plumber. What kind of plumber do you need?
Well, you certainly don't need a plumber who charges an exorbitant hourly fee and then stands around explaining the way your house was constructed 50 years ago or how he made his way up and through the plumbers' union.
No, the plumber you need is a professional who will find your problem fast, fix the leak quickly and expertly, show you how to prevent another leak from happening, and who respects your time and money.
That description fits the right kind of therapist, too. And that's what Goal-Directed Therapy is about.
In Goal-Directed Therapy, you do not spend endless and expensive weeks, months, and years rehashing your dysfunctional childhood, pointing blame at other people, or complaining about the terrible hand life has dealt you. While these issues may legitimately arise in the course of the therapeutic process, they are not the focus of Goal-Directed Therapy.
In Goal-Directed Therapy, you present your issue, admit its existence, and work with your professionally-trained therapist to figure out where it hurts, why it hurts, and most important, how to stop it from hurting and how to make sure it doesn't hurt again. That's what Goal-Directed Therapy is all about.
It's about taking action and taking control. It's about changing behaviors. About stopping the things you do now that give you pain, and replacing them instead with empowering thoughts and actions that give you the results you've been looking for.
It's about equipping yourself with a new set of skills to deal confidently and maturely with your life as it is. And it's about therapy with an end in sight.
Goal-Directed Therapy is not about long-winded dissertations full of meaningless psycho-babble. On the contrary, Goal-Directed Therapy is short-term, results-oriented therapy. It offers honest, straight-forward help from a professional trained to see the quickest, most accessible route to emotional wellness, and trained to help you see it and use it, too.
If you prefer to spend your hard-earned money and your precious time on analysis or therapy that offers no interpersonal feedback and no practical solutions, of course, that's up to you.
But if you intend to make a change for the better in your life - a change you can apply to make a positive difference right now - then Goal-Directed Therapy may well be the answer you've been seeking.
The choice, as always, is yours.
Goal-Directed Therapy is about taking action and taking control. It's about changing behaviors, about equipping yourself with a new set of skills to deal confidently and maturely with your life as it is now. It is short-term, results-oriented therapy. It's therapy with an end in sight.
Self assessment:
These are two issues that are holding me back from enjoying my life to the fullest right now:
1.
2.
Here are two actions I can take to change my life for the better right now:
1.
2.
Issues For Goal-Directed Therapy:
Below is a partial list of issues that can be effectively resolved through the process of Goal-Directed Therapy. But whatever the issue is that may be causing you pain or preventing you from enjoying your life to the fullest, Goal-Directed Therapy can help.
Stress Management
Self-Esteem
Assertiveness Training
Self-image and Weight Management
Marriage Counseling
Divorce Counseling
Creating a Harmonious "Blended" Family
Parenting Skills
Sexual Abuse
Life Cycle Passages
View Profile
Click here to view Thelma Golub's profile.
Take a test:
See also:
|
 |
 |
|
