'Job done'

This is an interesting phrase, perhaps suggesting that life is about getting on with things, getting through tick lists and getting jobs ‘done’. Many would be shocked to consider therapy as a ‘job done’ tick list contender. And perhaps there are those prospective clients who fear that many of us therapists would feel insulted if our contribution was just a tick box in their lives, perhaps sitting happily alongside book the heating boiler service, get your tax return sorted out etc. 

But what might the ‘job done’ approach offer therapy. Lets start with a list!

• Perhaps you don’t need to sort everything out in one go, perhaps you just want to start with some focused, useful change. Perhaps you just want to learn to deal with stress better - and are not ready to revolutionise yourself out of that high stress job/course/parenting/mid life crisis. 

• Perhaps you do just need to be better at something, such as get a better grip on your ability to do good presentations. And otherwise you really are quite happy with who and how you are.

• Perhaps your partner would run a mile at the thought of joining you in long term therapy exploring frightening feelings. But offer them some short term coaching and a strategy you can both use to get arguments down by two thirds, and perhaps therapy suddenly looks useful.

Many of us therapists are familiar with clients who just want to get a specific job done. And many of us like it. We can get specific about problem definitions, strategies, number of sessions and identifying the indicators which will let us all satisfyingly tick the ‘job done’ box.

Sometimes we just need to act and get on with things.

As always - talk to your therapist.