A psychotherapist is not a magician or wizard. As you work with a psychologist, a person begins to understand himself better and gains inner freedom. However, achieving what you want - for example, the opportunity to get married or move to a high-paying job - is not easy.
There can be many reasons.
It happens that a client comes with one request, but the focus shifts to a deeper problem, and the original request fades into the background. For example, behind the desire to earn more, a need for intimacy is revealed, and behind mood swings, a confused and painful relationship with a mother who died 10 years ago is revealed.
Sometimes psychologists see the reason for an unresolved request in the client’s secondary benefit, inconsistency and even a frivolous attitude towards working with a psychologist.
In some cases, requests are initially unrealistic. For example, one day a lonely nurse approached me with a request to buy a villa in Cyprus. The lady asked to be taught how to use the visualization tool “to the fullest.” As she heard from friends, he makes it possible to achieve any goals.
Despite the variety of reasons why we do not achieve results in working on ourselves, there is a common fundamental principle on which it depends whether the client’s request will be satisfied, whether the person will reach a new financial level, whether he will change his place of residence, whether he will divorce his alcoholic husband .
Setting a Goal and Forming an Intention: What's the Difference?
Maybe to achieve results it is enough to clearly formulate the goal?
The SMART technique for achieving goals was formulated in the 1980s and was originally used in management. It gained popularity because it made it possible to increase corporate productivity several times. Well, as sometimes happens, it migrated to personal time management. And then into the field of psychological work. The principles of the method are almost universally used in free translation when talking about goal setting.
For the goal to be achieved, several conditions must be met:
S (specific) - specificity.
That is, the goal should be as clearly formulated as possible.
M (measurable) - measurability.
We must clearly understand when a goal can be considered achieved. For example, when talking about earning a large amount of money, imagine exactly what amount we are talking about.
A (attainable) - reachability.
In this case, you should check whether the goal is feasible in principle. That is, to calculate whether current resources are enough for it.
R (relevant) - relevance.
The goal you set must be consistent with your values and lifestyle. That is, somehow fit into the everyday context.
T (time-bound) - time limitation.
At this point it is important to determine the deadlines for implementation. They must be specific and clear.
Adherents of the method note its practicality, realism and simplicity. Indeed, the SMART methodology is quite suitable for setting specific goals - that is, those that can be formulated in one phrase. This way you can, for example, buy a car or get rid of extra pounds.
However, this technique does not apply well to long-term goals. First of all, because it is not able to take into account the adjustments that life often makes to our plans. Take, for example, the situation with the pandemic, which affected not only plans, but also significantly changed the goals of many of us.
The disadvantage of SMART is that it has a too narrow and inflexible understanding of goals.
Because of this, we may refuse fundamentally new opportunities that open up while we solve the task at hand. It's a great tool, but it's severely limited by context.
Forget about balance
Do you want to win? Live on the limit, forgetting about balance. Do you think Edison dreamed of balance, analyzing tens of thousands of combinations of materials every day for six months to get a light bulb? Do you think any famous musician left time for balance when preparing for their best concerts? Forget about it.
Forget about balance Photo:Intention and Desire: What's the Difference?
About 15 years ago, trainings on developing “wants” were popular. Many, discovering that they do not want anything or that they want it “weakly and uncertainly,” began to improve their “desire formation skills.” There were many reasons for the lack of desires: from a banal lack of vitality and psychological blocking of desires caused by trauma, to family programs or prohibitions on wanting something, passed down from generation to generation. In the course of personal and group therapy, as a rule, it is possible to deal with this problem.
But with intention it is much more difficult. Unfortunately, most of us do not distinguish between desire and intention.
One of the leading Russian neuropsychologists, Tatyana Grigorievna Vizel, writes a lot about the fact that it is incorrect to use the term “emotional-volitional sphere,” which supposedly should reflect the essence of intention. An emotion is a reaction to what is happening, the cause of which can be rooted both in personal history and in psychophysiology. And the volitional function (or simply will) is based more on meaning. That is, volitional action is basically not physiologically determined, and often completely goes against natural impulses.
According to Wiesel, it is precisely the attempt to bring together such different spheres of manifestation of the psyche without understanding how their hierarchy is structured that greatly confuses not only ordinary people, but also psychologists themselves.
The difference between desire and intention is rooted in emotional involvement. It is the emotional network of the brain that interferes with the focus of volitional function.
Remember various spiritual and religious teachings: they devote a lot of attention to cultivating impartiality and emotional equanimity. This reflects modern data: strengthening volitional function is impossible without achieving emotional balance.
Don't worry if you don't know something
Sometimes it’s so embarrassing to admit that we are not successful or smart enough, so we want to show that we know more than in fact. And instead of saying “I don’t know” and immediately starting to study the issue, we pretend that “everything is already clear”... And it’s even worse to say that we don’t know what the future will be like.
But you don't have to know everything. And you don’t have to be afraid of this ignorance either. The area of ignorance is the most exciting, because it is the space for exploration. Look there boldly and live the way you want.
Intention from a neuropsychological perspective
In the bestselling book Buddha's Brain, Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius describe the nature of intention from a neuropsychological perspective. The authors write in detail about attachment as a force that blocks the actions of intention.
- Most of the intentions that arise in our brains are outside of conscious perception. Most often, these are not intentions, but desires.
- Ideally, our intentions should be consistent at all levels of the nervous system axis - that is when you will feel special power.
- In a neuropsychological sense, intention is coherence at all levels of the nervous system axis.
Hanson and Mendius write that achieving such coherence at all levels of the nervous system is not easy. We constantly switch from one task to another, so the neural connections that reinforce the intention simply do not have time to form. To maintain the strength of intention, a special unidirectional effort is required.
The power of intention is especially evident in working with addictions. Let me give you an example from personal practice.
A young man came to the reception and smoked weed from time to time. According to him, if earlier he felt the urge to smoke 1-2 times a week, now he feels like smoking almost every day. During the counseling process, at the stage of forming the intention to cope with addiction, we encountered difficulties. Most of his motivations were beyond conscious perception. After three sessions, the client disappeared for a month, after which he returned with a request to continue working. Considering the specifics of addiction, we agreed on supportive work between sessions in the format of text therapy. After three weeks, the intention to get rid of addiction began to gain certainty and strength, and breakdowns occurred less and less often.
The therapy lasted 4.5 months, the main focus was strengthening the power of intention - the formation of a stable unity of neurological levels through exercises to develop self-control.
The young man developed a new hobby: organizational work in a tourist club, which occupied a fair share of his attention. We noted how the intention to get rid of addiction was closely related to the formation of new dominants in life and concentration on them.
Why do we always quit what we started?
From time to time I have clients who say they want to do long-term therapy. At the beginning of my practice, I was surprised that after 2-3 sessions they seemed to forget about their intention. Often, six months or a year later, people signed up for a new session, gratefully recalling the good results of our work. In such a situation, a person formed an intention - and without any particular reason (as it turned out later) stopped following it.
What if such a pattern manifests itself not only in psychotherapy? We decide that we will go for a walk every morning, and after a couple of days we stop doing it. Or, having started learning a foreign language, we give up after some time. It doesn’t work, it’s not mine, I don’t want something - well, that’s okay.
There really is nothing terrible in each specific case.
But at the neurological level, new neural circuits arise that reinforce this pattern: started and unfinished work becomes a common occurrence.
Simply put, we get used to the fact that the goal is not achieved over and over again. The brain learns to perceive our intentions as temporary and saves resources without helping to realize our will.
How to strengthen your intention?
Step 1: Consciously let go of unrealistic desires
What to do about it? Is it really possible to make only irrevocable decisions? Of course not.
Experts recommend “marking” certain decisions as important, and looking at others as a process without striving for a result.
For example, we can take a few painting lessons, which does not mean that we should strive to become professional painters. Experience shows that for people who believe that they “can’t do anything,” it can be extremely important to stop creating an endless series of unfulfilled intentions. They should thoughtfully review the items on their wish list and gradually give up what looks unrealistic.
Here is a practical example demonstrating the successful abandonment of the intention to buy a motorcycle:
“A couple of years ago I wanted to buy a motorcycle. I saved money. But it happened that I got a promotion at work, money appeared and a friend, going abroad, sold his car at a very reasonable price. The thought of a motorcycle still warms me, but I understand that it is physically impossible to cope with it and the car - there is simply not enough time. In addition, the car allows you to make longer road trips than was possible on a motorcycle. Therefore, I decided to abandon my intention to buy a motorcycle. For now for two years. And then we'll see. Perhaps I will return to this topic."
By giving up intentions with a conscious decision, we teach ourselves to treat their formulation more responsibly. Step by step. We learn to ask ourselves whether we really need it. This is how the brain learns to form and implement the most realistic signals.
Step 2: Distinguish Basic Needs
What do I really want? How often do we ask this question?
The usual set of “wants”, which we most likely stopped believing in a long time ago, often only indirectly relates to our intentions. Good job, peace in the family, self-realization... Sounds like a broken record. All this is important, of course, but not inspiring, because these are not personal desires and aspirations, but basic needs. These include the needs for food, clothing, shelter, sex, emotional intimacy - this is what allows us to survive.
But at the same time, for each person, the priorities of needs and aspirations are set differently: the line between necessary, sufficient and excessive is extremely blurred.
In fact, Maslow's pyramid of needs, which describes the hierarchy of needs, has little application to life.
Abraham Maslow argued that when basic needs are satisfied, we can talk about satisfying higher needs - creativity and self-actualization. But it is enough to recall the biographies of the figures of science and art who left their mark, many of whom barely made ends meet, often without a roof over their heads. At the same time, their fellow citizens living in comfort did not go beyond everyday interests.
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Meditation for dummies: how to start, what to do - and why not everyone needs it
Step 3: Distinguish between “heart calls” and “voice of reason”
In Lacanian psychoanalysis there is the idea that we can take the desires of the Other for our own aspirations. For example, my mother might want us to have a country house - and despite the fact that we do not want to live, as my mother says, we have a desire for that very house (and we may find ourselves in it in the most unexpected way).
It is difficult to discover and separate our own desires and intentions from the desires and intentions of another person, because we do not know how to listen to the dictates of our own heart, but recognize only the values and plans that come “from the head.”
It seems that few people are given such an attentive attitude towards themselves by nature, and therefore most have to learn it from scratch. I am sure that one of the important tasks of psychotherapy is the opportunity to learn this.
Step 4: Organize your intentions
— Try to seek contact between your deepest lasting feelings and momentary desires
The first step to this is to get to know them. That is, at least have a rough idea of what we really want.
A good help in this, along with working with a psychologist, can be the independent use of projective techniques and art therapeutic practices. Julia Cameron's books can help, they have not left the bestseller lists for many years and have helped many develop and strengthen their creative potential.
— Get an idea of your internal code, determine priorities
What in your desires seems important, and what can you refuse? Of course, this work will take time, but you will be able to get out of the vicious circle of vague motives and unfulfilled desires. You can determine your priorities yourself by participating in goal-setting training or by contacting a competent psychologist.
- Give yourself time
Intentions that combine “head and heart” (that is, in which the logic of the mind is consistent with irrational impulses) stand the test of time.
- Check if your intention is focused on another person
Doesn't it depend on the expression of emotions and actions of another person? Unfortunately, we sometimes tend to confuse the realm of interpersonal relationships and circumstances with the manifestation of personal intention.
Step 5: Strengthening Intention
Most psychotechniques, from auto-training to complex systems such as qigong or yoga, are associated with strengthening intentions and affect various psychophysiological levels. The connection between the psyche and physiology is no longer in doubt. It is precisely turning to practices of working with the body that can significantly advance us in strengthening our intentions - although this is a long process. In this article we will not dwell on the details of these practices; it is difficult to talk about them briefly.
In psychology, methods of working with so-called anchors, which allow you to fix the desired state, have proven themselves well. In essence, this is the formation of a conditioned reflex at the level of association.
Many people remember “memory knots” from childhood. Our body has a memory resource - it is to this that we turn when tying knots. After all, concrete actions or objects are remembered more easily than abstract ideas. Many areas of psychotherapy have a whole arsenal of techniques for working with anchors based on the principle of such “knots”. Experience shows that the use of anchors can significantly enhance the power of intention.
There is a lot of information about working with subject anchors. It will be enough for a thoughtful reader to understand how this works.
How to choose a specialist to work on your intention
Psychology is sometimes called “pair psychotechnics”. Michel Foucault, appealing to the experience of ancient Greek philosophy and describing the so-called self-practices, noted that the goal of the mentor was to teach a person to take care of himself until he learns to do it himself. The helping specialist also performs similar work.
To be fair, it must be said that we do not always turn to the helping specialist directly for changes. At the same time, self-knowledge, inner honesty and awareness of true desires will inevitably lead to change, although this process often takes a long time.
However, it happens that even the most powerful insights obtained during sessions only have a minor impact on the client’s future life. The transformation caused by such an insight, although experienced quite emotionally, may not take hold and may not greatly influence the future.
When turning to a helping specialist to solve a specific issue, it is important to understand the difference between psychological counseling and psychotherapy. The first is aimed at solving narrow problems, the second is aimed at developing self-understanding.
Ask the helping specialist what exactly he understands by intention. It may be that, being an expert in his field, he may underestimate the role of intention in practice or have a vague understanding of it. And if when working with traumatic experiences this is often not a problem (here we are talking about healing mental wounds), then in the context of achieving the desired changes it can become a significant obstacle.
Checklist “Formation of intention”
- Desire is aimed at satisfying a need. In this case, the need can be repressed and suppressed. Regardless of whether desire is manifested or not, it largely shapes behavior.
- Intention is a function of the will. Intention presupposes a plan and often forces a person to act even contrary to his desires.
- Desire often has a pronounced emotional connotation and evokes strong feelings.
- The ability to manage intention and strengthen it largely depends on the person himself , while desires are born spontaneously and uncontrollably.
- A desire, under certain conditions, can develop into an intention . Intention, unlike desire, is controllable, and therefore can only be transformed into another intention.
Remember the saying “Beware of your wishes, they tend to come true”? I think it's not so much about desires as it is about properly focused intentions.
The formation of intention in its pure form can be classified as an art. Perhaps this is what the Chinese sages meant when they spoke of the “mastery of controlled coincidences.” The ability to enter a state of complete internal consistency, when intention covers all aspects of our being, is self-realization.
Addressing a person by name
When speaking, don’t forget to address your interlocutor by name . According to Dale Carnegie, this is the sweetest sound for everyone. Personality is inseparable from the name; by pronouncing it, we seem to say to the person - you are, you exist. And this causes him positive emotions, which he subconsciously transfers to us. (We are not talking about special cases when a person does not like his name.)
- Phoebe, what a beautiful name you have! - ABOUT! You haven't heard my phone number yet!..
