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<p>There is broad consensus that attainable goals are essential for guiding effective, client-tailored interventions. However, unrealistic goals—grandiose, vague, or idealized—pose a familiar challenge in social work practice, particularly in mandated or high-risk contexts. These goals are often met with social workers’ efforts to reframe or redirect them toward more realistic aims. While these efforts are often well-intentioned, they may provoke resistance and inadvertently bypass the internal emotional meaning embedded in the client’s original formulation. This Practice Report introduces a clinical minimalist method based on a single bridging question: “<i>And then what would you feel?</i>” designed for collaborative goal formulation. By accepting the client’s stated goal and gently exploring its emotional resonance, social workers can access subjective, emotionally grounded goals that matter to the client and support therapeutic progress. The bridging question lays the groundwork for integrating emotional exploration and action-oriented work across clinical orientations. Through two clinical illustrations drawn from different areas of social work practice, the article demonstrates how the question facilitates emotional clarification, strengthens the therapeutic alliance, and supports goal setting that reflects both the client’s internal world and real-life possibilities.</p>

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Working Through the Unrealistic Goal Syndrome: Using a Key Bridging Question

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年2月13日

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  • Merav Rabinovich

摘要

There is broad consensus that attainable goals are essential for guiding effective, client-tailored interventions. However, unrealistic goals—grandiose, vague, or idealized—pose a familiar challenge in social work practice, particularly in mandated or high-risk contexts. These goals are often met with social workers’ efforts to reframe or redirect them toward more realistic aims. While these efforts are often well-intentioned, they may provoke resistance and inadvertently bypass the internal emotional meaning embedded in the client’s original formulation. This Practice Report introduces a clinical minimalist method based on a single bridging question: “And then what would you feel?” designed for collaborative goal formulation. By accepting the client’s stated goal and gently exploring its emotional resonance, social workers can access subjective, emotionally grounded goals that matter to the client and support therapeutic progress. The bridging question lays the groundwork for integrating emotional exploration and action-oriented work across clinical orientations. Through two clinical illustrations drawn from different areas of social work practice, the article demonstrates how the question facilitates emotional clarification, strengthens the therapeutic alliance, and supports goal setting that reflects both the client’s internal world and real-life possibilities.