ABSTRACT
A therapy process that lacks vision and purpose creates a sense of aimlessness. The lack of momentum that occurs when we are not moving toward something that has been defined leaves the client and therapist dissatisfied. The client's desires for treatment propel therapeutic movement, and these desires are feelings in the body. Goals and desires become empty words without a visceral connection. When a person declares, “I don't want to carry this anxiety around anymore!” and feels the desire in the body to break free of anxiety's grip, energy for therapeutic work becomes available. When a plan to achieve therapeutic goals comes into focus, focusing on feelings and giving attention to all internal experience, this vision lays the groundwork for productive work ahead.
Goals can become active in one moment and abandoned in the next. Goals travel from foreground to background in treatment and hope correspondingly intensifies or diminishes. A direct inquiry to clarify current goals in treatment becomes necessary to re-energize the process. In this chapter, the author provides therapeutic principles to bring the client's vision into focus.
