Therapeutic Assumption - No. V

Hi there!

Welcome back to the MoodiNews. Every Thursday, we discuss a variety of matters related to mental health and self-improvement.

I’m so glad you’re here.

This week, we are going to wrap up our discussion on: THERAPEUTIC ASSUMPTIONS! (YAY!)

Today, we will be reviewing the fifth and final therapeutic assumption:

People are doing the best that they can—and they can do better.

This therapeutic assumption reminds us that self-improvement is a process that requires both patience and accountability.

It’s about helping people move forward while simultaneously giving them permission to be imperfect.

The first half of therapeutic assumption No. V reminds us to have empathy for other people’s struggles.

When people reach the point of starting therapy, it’s fair to assume that they have been doing the best that they can with the skills that they’ve got—otherwise, they wouldn’t be there!

All people want to feel good, find success, and experience a life that’s worth living—and, whenever that’s not happening, people instinctively seek out ways to feel better on their own.

Furthermore, when given the choice, most people prefer to help themselves out of difficulty rather than going out of their way to ask others for help (at a minimum it’s inconvenient, but this can also feel like a death sentence for people who struggle with shame).

Plus, let’s be honest—nobody wants to take time out of their life to admit to a complete and total stranger that their life is out of control.

For all of these reasons, it’s fair to assume that therapy is rarely a person’s first course of action in resolving personal difficulty.  

Therefore, when people arrive to therapy in a state of crisis, feeling defeated, it’s important to acknowledge that they’ve been fighting, usually in silence, for a long time before finally reaching out for support.

This brings us to the second half of therapeutic assumption No. V, which is beautifully summarized in the following quote by Maya Angelou:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

This is where our inner work comes in.

Therapy is all about introducing people to skills and insights that help them ‘know better,’ so that they can grow into themselves and become unstuck.

People can do hard things, but only after they have first identified a path forward—and it’s impossible to hold ourselves accountable to something that we aren’t aware of, even if we know subconsciously that things could be better.

Change is never easy, but it’s so often the birthplace of the life that we long for and desperately seek. Rather than expecting people to know things that they were never taught (see again therapeutic assumption No. III), we assume that people naturally want to improve and simply need assistance in making it to the next level.

(Again, as mentioned before, when people are able to see opportunities in front of them and they actually feel resourced enough to take advantage of those opportunities, they will.)

In summation, therapeutic assumption No. V offers us an important message of acceptance and accountability: people are doing the best that they can—and they can do better. This idea gives people permission to seek help for their issues without judgment, while still preserving a sense of hope and protecting their personal agency.

Next week, there will be no posting as I recover from another eye surgery.

However, we will resume again in two weeks with a new series on some of the most common obstacles that hinder self-improvement!