Starting or re-starting therapy is a meaningful step, but knowing what you want from it can make the process even more powerful. Whether you’re seeking support for ADHD, anxiety, relationships, or personal growth, having a clear set of goals and a roadmap can help you feel more focused, motivated, and confident in your progress. Often times, clients come to therapy with an idea of what they would like see change but do not fully know how to get there.
As a clinician, our work with clients is to help build a roadmap towards understanding the position someone is currently in, small steps to achieving bigger, long term goals, and determining what the end of the therapeutic journey would look like.
Transforming a desire to change into tangible plans looks like being specific, realistic, and meaningful with the steps towards those changes. Coming up with these steps is typically something one would do in the first couple of sessions with their therapist and is an on-going process. Some common goals individuals may bring into therapy include better communication skills, tools to manage feelings of distress, implementing life style changes, healing past events or trauma, and shifting unhelpful cognitive patterns.
Therapy is a collaborative process. You don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin. We are here to help you clarify your goals, refine your roadmap, choose the therapeutic modality that will best address your goal, and support you along the way. What matters most is your willingness to reflect, engage, and take small steps forward.
If you’re considering therapy or just getting started, take a moment to ask yourself: “What would meaningful change look like for me?”
~ Rachel Tober, Registered Psychologist
