Goal-oriented practice across therapies

This chapter explores goal-oriented practice across therapies: cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), psychoanalytic psychotherapy, psychoanalytic child psychotherapy, interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), humanistic and existential therapies, systemic family therapy, and online therapy. Each section gives an overview of the approach and sets out ways that goals are conceptualized, negotiated, and embedded. Examples are given to illustrate how goals are used. Differences are found across these approaches in the methods used to negotiate goals, and the extent that these are made explicit and embedded in the work. Greater similarities are found in the use of goals in CBT and IPT, compared with the less directive modalities of humanistic, psychodynamic, and systemic psychotherapies. Differences are also found within modalities (e.g. psychoanalytic psychotherapy for adults versus psychoanalytic child psychotherapy). However, the chapter demonstrates the many similarities in the use of goals as a common factor across these different therapeutic approaches.