What gives? or What moves?: How to Keep Therapy Moving Forward

"What gives?" Therapy can be a very difficult process to begin, to continue and then even more to complete. While therapy is a complex process there are specific parts of it that, if recognized, can make the whole process much more fluid and potentially productive. So instead of trying to tackle a massive question like, "how does therapy work?," instead, let's discuss one aspect: "What moves?"

Everyone engaged in therapy wants therapy to move forward and at some point come to a positive and healthy conclusion. Regardless of an unexpressed desire that happens to short-circuit or obstruct the forward movement, and this does happen much more often than one would think, the fact that someone actively attends sessions implies that they do want to get past their current problems.

So, if we focus on the "what moves" therapy, then we may be able to keep ourselves somewhat more focused and productive in therapy? I would not be so bold as to state that there is only one component in therapy that moves therapy, but I would like to put forward that there can be one thing that does contribute greatly to this forward progression: Desire. It, like therapy, is a very complicated idea. It has been discussed throughout entire books and by many great thinkers, but for our purposes here, the simple recognition that desire is what moves us — toward and sometimes away from what we say we want — can be a powerful anchor for keeping the work of therapy in motion.

By Mathew Quaschnick