Abstract
Therapists, psychologists, and related practitioners and theorists of mental health tend to hold one of two broad views about how to help clients. On the one hand, some maintain that, or at least act as though, the basic point of therapy is to help clients become clear about what they want deep down and to enable them to achieve it by overcoming mental blockages. On the other hand, there are those who contend that the aim of therapy should instead be to psychologically enable clients to live objectively good lives, say, ones that involve developing their inherent talents or exhibiting an authentic/integrated/resilient self. This chapter argues that neither of these prominent approaches is adequate. Contra the former, sometimes what clients want deep down is not something to promote, and, against the latter, it can sometimes be reasonable for clients to want to sacrifice their own objective interests and for therapists to assist them in this regard. It is argued that the category of meaningfulness does well at accounting for these counterexamples to the two dominant approaches, while capturing the kernels of truth in them. The proper aim of therapy, according to this chapter, is to enable clients to live meaningfully.
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Notes
- 1.
The suggestion is not that these perspectives exhaust either Freud’s or Winnicott’s views (indeed, section three addresses the latter’s more objective view that the point of therapy is to live according to a true self); it is rather that their texts occasion awareness of subjective approaches, ones that have been extremely influential. More generally, this chapter is not out to capture the intricacies of any particular theorist, but rather to draw on remarks and views so as to illustrate theories.
- 2.
Note that merely because an attitude is deep does not necessarily mean that it is fixed. Even if one strongly likes something or takes an interest in it for its own sake, it might still be possible to change one’s likes and interests.
- 3.
Sometimes these thinkers appeal to more than one characterization of a healthy self, the thought being that, say, a disintegrative self is a (kind of a) weak one. It would be interesting to consider elsewhere whether one construal is more apt than the others or is most fundamental.
- 4.
Another sort of case, which I lack the space to address in depth here, is one in which a client is inclined to give up objective goodness in favor of a religious, cultural, or other value with which s/he identifies. A medical doctor intuitively can have reason to treat patients in light of their meaningful self-conceptions, and so not to promote their physical health as much as s/he would have otherwise (on which see Orr & Genesen, 1997); similar remarks arguably apply to a therapist.
- 5.
I must credit Michael Lacewing for this fascinating suggestion.
- 6.
And hence not by, say, Viktor Frankl (1984).
- 7.
Which was first spelled out in Metz (2013b), from which the next few paragraphs borrow.
- 8.
These matters are critically explored in Metz (2013a).
- 9.
The next two sentences are cribbed from Metz (2012, p. 445).
- 10.
For comments on a previous draft of this chapter, the author thanks Dan Stein, Pedro Tabensky, and the editors of this volume. Special thanks to Michael Lacewing.
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Metz, T. (2016). The Proper Aim of Therapy: Subjective Well-Being, Objective Goodness, or a Meaningful Life?. In: Russo-Netzer, P., Schulenberg, S., Batthyany, A. (eds) Clinical Perspectives on Meaning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41397-6_2
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