As a Therapist, What's Your Agenda?

Do you have an agenda when you’re working with clients? Do you (secretly) believe they should leave their abusive relationship or stand up to their dominating mom or pursue a degree in theater arts when everyone else is telling them to study computer design? Do you think this client should stop trying to be perfect, or that they should get over the grief of their pet’s death six years ago? Maybe you think a client should focus more on emotional growth and less on gaming – or perhaps you truly believe a certain client would be happier if they only made a different choice in terms of parenting styles.

Having an agenda for clients is a subtle, but powerful influence on the ways our work affects clients, and it’s essential that we’re highly aware of our agenda, from session to session. Some therapists believe having a clear agenda with their clients is a useful tool, a way to boldly shape their progress. Others will claim they have no agenda at all – they’re merely “following the process” that’s unfolding with their clients.

Being strongly grounded in differentiation and developmental theory, I definitely have an agenda for clients . . . but it’s not about what they do, it’s about who they are.

I hold the idea that a client’s choices and behaviors are their domain, and not something I have a vote on. Specifically, I would never want them to make a different choice because they imagine that’s the choice I want them to make. If that’s the motivation, they’ve just lost out on a key developmental opportunity: making a different choice because it’s the choice they want to make.

There’s emotional maturity in learning to make your own choices, face the consequences, and then learn how it feels to wrestle with your different impulses, desires, or needs in order to make a choice that seems best. (There’s not much emotional growth/maturity in being good at reading what others want or chronically dismissing others’ influence.)

I worked with someone once who wanted to stop reaching for food as a way to deal with her difficult emotions. As months went by, she failed again and again to “make a different choice” when she was upset or lonely. She would state that maybe I was disappointed in her lack of progress – and during one session, she commented that she knew I thought she should be doing better.

I could honestly assure her neither of those notions was accurate. I had absolutely no agenda for her relationship with eating. If she wanted a different relationship, I would help her develop it. But if she never changed her eating patterns, that was fully her choice and one I would (by definition) respect. In working with her, I was invested in her developing the ability to "wrestle with herself," to face herself, to develop her own integrity around eating or emotional reactions. I wanted to support her in gaining the maturity or growth we get when we make our own choices . . . and face the fallout (positive or negative).

You see how this works? It goes a long way in removing me or my influence from the algorithm she’s using to learn a new pattern. Facing one’s own agency to direct one’s life is a way to develop emotional maturity. You stop looking to others’ reactions and start facing the fact that this is on me.

In fact, it’s directly linked to how you learn who you truly are: You squarely face your strengths, weaknesses, avoidance patterns and progress, choices, and faults. There’s no “keeping score” by an outsider (therapist), no negative judgment or downside no matter what happens – there’s just you facing yourself when you drop the ball, let yourself down, betray your own values, or violate your real needs. Therapy should help you face, process, and grow from all of those moments.

Durga was in a relationship almost anyone would have labeled “unhealthy.” Sandeep was overly controlling and made negative comments about her work and her personal habits. When Durga showed up in my office, she was afraid to tell me just how critical Sandeep could be. As she offered more and more examples, she would say, “I know what you think. You think I should leave him.”

I could sincerely tell Durga I had no idea about whether or not she should leave Sandeep, but I was highly interested in what she thought of herself, and how she felt about staying or going. It took her a long time to trust I wasn’t going to push her into leaving. Along the way, she got clearer and clearer about her own reactions to his behavior. Slowly but surely, she was able to "inhabit" how she truly felt. She started communicating more directly with Sandeep, learned what it felt like to hold onto herself, and felt hugely changed by being less debilitated by his comments.

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I often say to clients, “Listen, I’m going to sleep fine tonight, no matter which choice you make. It’s totally up to you — I don’t get a vote. And if you’re willing to stay present and be honest with yourself, you’ll learn a lot, either way. You could just focus on whether or not your choice reflects who you want to be. And you’re the only one who gets to decide.”

In the end, it’s all about who we want to be and whether or not we have the courage to make choices based on who we truly want to be.

I definitely have an agenda with clients. Regardless of the details of their situation, my agenda is that they learn to face themselves more squarely and more directly. It doesn’t matter at all what I think of unhealthy patterns; what matters is what those patterns mean to them. And whether or not they’re willing to do the hard work of outgrowing them.

It’s not about what they do, it’s about who they are.