AGAINST GOALS

....................by Stanley

.......The entire counselling community has been infected by a misdemeanour contrary to the whole idea of personal growth. Like a virus it has infected the psychological helping professions and compromised the best interests of our clientele. It is the idea that all psychological help must by guided by a plan, a plan that states at the very beginning what a course of therapy is supposed to achieve.The buzzword is ‘outcome’. There must be a proposed ‘outcome’. We need goals, it is said, to able to detect whether therapy is accomplishing the desired ‘outcome’. Counselling has to go somewhere. There has to be an aim. Not only to be able to make regular progress reports, but goals are necessary otherwise sessions stagnate and become a mere indulgence and a waste of time.
......Pushed by social workers, government agencies like ACC, and WINZ and also by profession bodies like NZAC, NZAP, the need for therapeutic goals seems to be implicitly accepted by everyone. Therapists have to write reports on ‘outcomes’ and proposed ‘outcomes’ for future appoinments. Although there are those who privately disagree with all this hoo-hah, it has become the official line. Counselling has been surreptitiously redefined without anyone really challenging it – hi-jacked by institutional requirements taking precedence over the real welfare of individuals.
.......All the work and research done in person centred therapy over the years indicates conclusively that personal growth is spontaneous, yet no one seems to see the contradiction between this and the requirements of therapeutic plans and goals.
......The absolute benchmark of good counselling is surprise – you simply cannot, and should not try, to predict what is going to happen in a session. This is why among the most productive sessions are those where the person comes to it with no notion of what they are going to talk about. The client finds herself saying what she had no idea needed to be said. The unconscious can begin to speak.
......The truth is that having a precise goal actually hampers the course of therapy. And it is easy to see why. It restricts. A goal is set by the conscious ego, what you are at the moment, what you are struggling with. The goal is set by the struggle – but the whole nature of the repetitive struggle, is precisely what must change. But goals hold the status quo in place. By insisting on the goal of therapy we perpetuate the struggle. Whatever the goal is, it issues from the presupposition of having what it is you are trying to banish. The exact nature of the goal is part of the struggle. The goal is the problem.
.......‘I must get over my addiction’ prevents any other slant from emerging. It simply confirms that you are addicted. ‘I must improve myself’ confirms that you need improving. The goal itself is born from your concentration on the problem. So, all the time you work at it, you confirm what you are trying to get rid of. Thus you never find anything new. You are quite conscious your aim and it leads around the same circle of effort and defeat it always has. The goal itself includes trying and failing. Or more precisely, the failing is the implicit shadow of trying.
.......Of course we all have non-neurotic goals, otherwise nothing would ever get done in the world, but those are not the goals people worry about and bring to therapy
Neurotic goals are as much the problem as the problem they focus on. Even vaguely making these a guideline in therapy is to guarantee the illusion of going somewhere whist remaining stuck. Of course, the therapist can make goals for the client without consulting her – that’s even worse !
.......How do you tell the difference between a stuck, neurotic goal from a genuine one? Realistic goals are interactive; they change and develop as reality changes. A neurotic goal never changes – always the same struggle to get there. Always working to make it better, guaranteeing the outcome is more of the same.