January 2024 Clinical Supervision Topic: Goal Consensus
(See previous years here.) (Really, check them out. They’re not bad.)
Let’s talk about radical imagination as it relates to goal consensus. What can you imagine for your clients? Whatever it is, make it good.
From this article,
We are living inside the imagination of our ancestors. Everything we see around us exists only because it first took shape in somebody’s mind. Ideas such as democracy, public libraries, the abolition of slavery, municipal sewage, aeroplanes, seatbelt regulations, eating with cutlery, the very building you’re sitting inside right now … they were all birthed in a person’s imagination, then actively formed into a shareable vision that others could collectively mould, modify, reimagine and nurture in their minds. Eventually, a concept that once existed solely inside a person’s mind – an idea that may have seemed impossible, wildly unachievable, even crazy to that person’s society – became our unremarkable reality, part of what is normal. This is the magic that made our wonderful, imperfect world.
What is the world that you can imagine for your clients? I don’t mean to bypass the reality of the very challenging and often painful life circumstances our clients face. I do mean to encourage you to use your imagination (<—that whole article is great, but see especially #5) to identify a bigger vision when thinking of what’s possible for them. Get creative. Get to know your clients and what they deeply desire and need. Visualize. Then set treatment goals from there.
And.
And make sure that you and your clients agree on the treatment goals.
And if you don’t, then do you defer to the client’s wishes? Express what you can imagine for them? Find a middle ground?
Other questions to consider when tying together the above concepts:
what can we co-create together?
how else might this client like to exist in the world?
how else might they want to be related to, and what can I offer there?
what does my modality say is possible for this client, and what does my client say they want?
what needs to change outside the client, and what can change inside the client?
I want to know what you think. Let’s come together and discuss.
