.................................... by Stanley
......I’ve noticed in myself and in others that, as people become more present to themselves, emerging as persons more centred in their own being, relationships can dramatically change, often bringing to an abrupt end friendships that may have endured untroubled for years.
......Friendships have the habit of defining who I am, enclosing me in a network of unspoken expectations. Unspoken and unnoticed, they fashion me into a ‘suitable’ person. A longtime friend easily relates to me because they know who I am and can trust my continued stability as a person. I’m a reliable friend. In fact, being a friend is being reliable. But my friend’s sense of my reliability may not take into account the fact that I have changed. And as I change the old expectations come under increasing strain until at last there is a blowup and they crack. Naturally, relationships crack-up for all sorts of reasons – this is only one of them.
......This scenario, or something like it, is especially true in family relationships. Nowhere is one held more tightly in a network of expectations than as a member of a family. God save us – they know who we are! Do they ever! We are immobilised. Their view of us is like a frozen picture, always the same, unmoving and reliable. There is no shifting it. They know us intimately from long experience. Or they think they do.
......At first, as I grow, I begin to define myself by who and what I am not. As I begin to change from what others think I am into someone more authentic, their projections of me gradually become more intolerable. More accurately: my acting, my pretending, becomes more intolerable. Worst of all, I am pretending for their sakes, trying not to disappoint them. The split between who I know I am and what they expect of me becomes unbearable until I blow – usually on some exaggerated minor issue. The truth is, I can no longer contain myself, pretending to be what I am not – and all just to keep them happy and undisturbed. It feels like I have been made use of all this time, merely a prop to support their fantasies about me that are useful to them.
......The awful thing is: I know there is no way of letting them know what has happened. I know it is impossible for them to actually understand me, the me I now am. They are hurt and disappointed or angry because they have made an investment in me that has suddenly ceased to pay dividends. And because they are hurt and angry by my rejection they cannot possibly see things the way I do. They are locked in their point of view.
......Even in the best and most loving relationships there are investments. The nature of such investments is a huge subject; in fact, it is what psychoanalysis is all about – something beyond the scope of this blog. Suffice it to say that the psychological life is a life of change, a constant and gradual redefining of who we are in relation to our environment, powered by an inner personal necessity to be true to myself.
......Change is of the essence. So, it is important for me to realise just how the flow of life can be locked in a network of expectations that enclose me. I have always seen myself through their unchanging eyes. They have held me in a motionless image, like an old frozen photograph; I do not define myself, am defined by them. I am who they think I am – and I cannot escape. When I begin to realise this I’ve already taken a step towards the exit.
......I can find no justification for the changes that I happen, except to say that they happen by virtue of a mysterious force I can only describe as ‘me’.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
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.
.......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.
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