I’ve thought about this question off and on since I started going to school to become a therapist, and then in the years since I started practicing. The answer has changed over time, and I assume it will continue to change – though at this point it feels more like fine-tuning the answer, and modifying language without substantively changing the answer.
This is my answer to the question – I’m genuinely curious about how others would answer it. I’ll start with a one-sentence response – an answer that covers every client I work with – and then go into more detail to explain how it plays out in different circumstances.
As a therapist, my goal with every client is to help them identify and live a fulfilling life.
That’s it, that’s the one sentence answer I can give to any client who asks what we’re doing here. From there it becomes a question of identifying what is currently keeping a client from feeling fulfilled. For some, they haven’t been able to identify what is fulfilling for them (and to be clear, it’s not one thing that will make a person feel fulfilled, it’s a collection of actions and experiences). For these clients I mainly engage using an Existential Therapy approach to help them find or create (depending on your Existential perspective) their own meaning in life, and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) to achieve it.
For others – and this is probably a majority of clients – it’s about identifying and resolving obstacles to a fulfilling life (this fits with the more traditional “medical model” of therapy). This can involve identifying more tangible, external obstacles and looking for ways around it, or if there isn’t a way around then using Acceptance to find a way to live WITH it. It can also involve internal thoughts, feelings, stories, narratives, etc. that hinder living in a fulfilling way. In those situations I add Narrative Therapy to the mix to try to help the client take power away from the stories.
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