Naming Our Values

Naming Our Values

The Cambridge Dictionary defines values as “the beliefs people have, especially about what is right and wrong, and what is most important in life, that control their behavior.” Social values may be shared standards held by a community, while personal values are an individual’s guiding beliefs. In individual therapy, both of these may interplay and overlap, but my focus as a therapist is helping you understand, process and name the values you hold.

Getting to know your values is a foundational skill that upholds many therapeutic interventions. We can gain insights into your behaviors and decisions in multiple domains of life.

Some common domains of interest to clients include relationships, health, work and leisure time. Looking at each of these, or other life domains, we can begin to describe how and why we feel we have come to the place we are, and how and why we could change in a way that causes us to feel positive about our life’s direction.

There are different methods of uncovering and exploring our values. One method involves considering a list of many words that describe values: Adventurous, Caring, Creative, Efficient, Generous, Open, Reliable, Sincere, etc. No list is exhaustive, but many good ones can be found online through a search for “values list.” You can add to or modify any list, or create your own.

Another method of exploring our values is to ask, “How do I want this part of my life to look or feel?” Describing our hopes and intentions for any of our life’s domains can help us paint a picture of our priorities in those domains. I often use techniques from Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), such as Coping Questions and Preferred Future exercises. Knowing how we have come through situations in the past and intend to create change in the future gives us insight into the indicators of our unique guiding values.

We can also ask ourselves questions about how a particular value became important to us. Sometimes, in exploring the source of our values, we run into core beliefs about ourselves, others, or the world around us. This is another important part of the process of self-reflection. Core beliefs are a theory of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and often, defining our values gives us information that begins to change negative core beliefs into positive ones. We can explore core beliefs further in a future blog post.

Any inventory of our values can give us guidance for creating and adjusting meaningful therapeutic goals. Our values can be a “North Star” for how we would like to proceed in life. Talking about them with a trusted therapist is one step toward the life we imagine ahead.