What I Want In Narrative Therapy

When a client first presents for therapy they may appear to have no idea of what they truly want from life, or they may be the opposite and seem to have a very clear view in their minds of what they want to achieve. In the former, it would be the counsellor’s job to try to find out what lies beneath all the perceived confusion and to finally discover just what the client needs to make their life better. In the latter however, it would be the counsellor’s job to listen carefully to the goals the client has set themselves and to decide whether they are, in fact, valid or not.

It may, on the surface, appear to be a clear cut choice that the client has made, and they may indeed appear to be genuine on what they want and why they want it. If properly investigated though it could turn out to be …show more content…
It could be something they have been conditioned into believing they ‘should’ or ‘must’ want, stemming from something they experienced a long time ago and which has become an ingrained core belief that is, and always has been, wrong. It may be that they simply think they want something because they have a need to excel in it, but in reality it would not be suitable for them at all.

This is why checking the validity of the client’s goals is essential. If they were to be encouraged to pursue a particular goal just because they appear, on the surface, to want it, it could cause serious harm both to the client and possibly to those around them too. It would be no good, for example if the counsellor allowed a client to try to reach the goal of being the perfect wife when it is obvious that she only wants this because she feels she ‘should’ and she wants to please the husband who may have imposed the impossible goal on her in the first place. It would also be wrong for the counsellor to allow a client to pursue his goal