Back in my early days training to be a psychologist, my mentor said something that opened eyes to what therapy is really about.
I was feeling stuck in helping a client and was asking for his experience to help me find a way forward. He asked a few questions to gain some context but then asked something I wasn’t expecting.
“What do you hope for this client? What do you hope they will gain from therapy?”
When I thought about how I wanted them to let go of the guilt and shame that they had been carrying for so long, I helped me ask different questions. It helped me listen in a different way and it helped the client feel a different energy in therapy; they were cared for and also hoped for.
I take that question into every session with me. And recently I’ve been thinking about taking it into every new day.
Have you ever asked yourself what you hope for in your day? What would change if you asked yourself this each morning?
Try it now:
What do you hope for today?
What do you hope to discover or achieve?
What do you hope to experience?