By George Maxwell
Updated on 08/08/2015
Now that we understand a little more about our depression, and how to use formulation to break down our problem into more manageable chunks, we want to spend some time reflecting upon how our life would be different if we were to reduce our problems or get rid of them entirely. On this section and the following, we’re going to spend some time thinking about our values, and secondly our treatment goals.
What do we mean by values? In our context, Values are sets of principles or guidelines with which we choose to live our lives by. Honesty, Truth and Freedom are all examples of values. As you can see, they are not necessarily objective or observable in nature, however they may serve as a set of principles with which someone can derive and generate meaning within their lives. Values have the power to motivate. When we understand our own values, then we understand more about what we need to do to get the meaning back into our lives.
The values assessment
Context is everything in designing effective goals and as such we want to centre our goal setting around your current life situation and the things that are important to you. Whilst Cognitive Behavioural Therapy presents us with a toolkit for dealing with our problems, it is unable to make assumptions about what it is that you as an individual thrive upon. We are all different, and as part of our personality make-up we each hold an abundance of varied values and beliefs about what we would like our inner and outer world to be like. As such, this first exercise in goal-setting is called a Values Assessment, and enables you to explore the values and attitudes which are intrinsically special to you. In the values assessment below, there are six different categories which broadly represent the different life dimensions of the average individual. Using the cue questions attached to each category to help you, have a go at writing down your values for each dimension.
You can download a printable version of this document here.
How did it go? In addition to defining some concrete values, many clients report that this exercise in particular can have a real motivating effect, allowing them to genuinely access and reflect upon the things which drive them in life. So, if you’ve skipped ahead to this section without completing the Values assessment, then please take a couple of steps back and have a go at it – the benefits are significant. What does it feel like to have spent some time exploring the things that you value the most? The things that define you? As I said earlier, there are no right answers to the values assessment so hopefully you have been able to be honest with yourself. Your partner, or anyone else for that matter, doesn’t need to see your values assessment if you don’t want them too. This is your stuff.
“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values,
your values become your destiny.”
Now that we understand a little bit more about the things that make us tick, we need to consider how we are going to integrate our values more into our lives. How to actually behave in a way that gets us more of the good stuff. This is where we need to convert our values into goals – click here to learn about exactly how to do this.