ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the ways to ensure good pragmatic choices. The therapist's task is to help clients to choose to do what they want to do, as opposed to feeling compelled to do something they do not want to do. A therapist should help clients to develop alternative habits in the situation in which the problematic habits occur. Then, when clients can choose between a problematic and a non-problematic, between a healthy and a pathological habit, they recover the freedom to choose how they want to live. Nobody can change someone else. We can change only ourselves. Therefore, all therapy is self-therapy. Many clients profess themselves to be powerless and incompetent. The chapter considers several options to build a context for good decisions: look for alternative habits, all symptom sequences end sooner or later and pre-session change is yet another possibility. It also focuses on creating a context of choice by inviting clients to make their own choices.