ABSTRACT
Many clients who present for therapy arrive confused, uncertain as to the cause of their problems, and bewildered about what to do about their problems. They want to feel understood and accepted ®rst and foremost. A therapist who ignores this and pursues a contract without ®rst providing an adequate attuned `play space' (Winnicott, 1971) for their client may well be experienced as unlikely to be able to provide a suf®cient `holding environment' (Winnicott, 1960, 1965). Furthermore, the goals clients initially set at the beginning of therapy may well be determined by their script. For example: a client states clearly that a life goal is to ®nd a partner and get married. During the course of therapy it emerges that the client has a strong sense that they should be married, on the basis of the cultural importance of marriage and the sense of not being a valid person if you aren't married, as held by parental and societal Parent introjects. It may well transpire that this client then amends their goal to having the freedom to choose whether they want to actually get married at all.
